Use when executing an implementation plan with four or more independent tasks touching different files, via the experimental agent-teams flag — parallel implementer teammates plus continuous async reviewers. Higher token cost; requires CLAUDE_CODE_EXPERIMENTAL_AGENT_TEAMS=1.
Use when starting creative work — adding features, building components, adding functionality, modifying existing behavior, or any time the user describes a new idea or capability they want to build.
Use when adding, modifying, or removing database tables, columns, indexes, views, functions, or RLS policies — any schema change targeting a shared or production database
Use when facing two or more independent investigations or research tasks in the current session — debugging multiple unrelated failures, exploring different solution approaches, or running parallel reads. Not for executing implementation plans (use subagent-driven-development, agent-team-development, or tmux-parallel-development for those).
Use when you have a written implementation plan to execute in a separate session with review checkpoints
Use when implementation is complete, all tests pass, and you need to decide how to integrate the work - guides completion of development work by presenting structured options for merge, PR, or cleanup
Use when the app is slow, a specific operation takes too long, bundle size is too large, or you need to optimize resource usage — requires a measurable problem, not premature optimization
Use when shipping a release — version bump, CHANGELOG entry, tag, push, suggested reinstall. Especially when the project has multiple manifest files that must stay version-synced (e.g., plugin.json + marketplace.json, package.json + Cargo.toml in workspaces, version.txt + setup.py). Triggers on "ship it," "cut a release," "tag v…," "bump version."