# Sub-Agents in Cursor-CLI

**URL:** <https://forum.cursor.com/t/sub-agents-in-cursor-cli/152453>\
**Category:** Discussions\
**Tags:** cli, skills, subagents\
**Created:** [February 20, 2026, 7:54pm UTC](https://forum.cursor.com/t/sub-agents-in-cursor-cli/152453 "2026-02-20T19:54:05Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 6

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**Author:** ![Tharun\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/90ced4/32.png) [@Tharun\_S](https://forum.cursor.com/u/Tharun_S)\
**Post date:** [February 24, 2026, 6:34pm UTC](https://forum.cursor.com/t/sub-agents-in-cursor-cli/152453/6 "2026-02-24T18:34:40Z")

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Hey @Colin !

Appreciate the response!

To your question, the subagents aren’t being launched at all (serialized instead). The specific issue seems to be a lack of a Task tool on CLI.

A reproducer to the issue is included below to highlight this issue:

[Agent-CLI.zip](https://forum.cursor.com/uploads/short-url/2X6vWeUpnZ4P7rxfnnoQyOTHUmu.zip) (4.1 KB)

The output on my end reads like:

> Both sub-agents completed successfully. However, this demonstrates the limitation described in the reproducer – both agents ran sequentially in a single  
> context rather than in parallel via the Task tool. The 2-second gap between timestamps confirms serial execution.

When prompted further:

> The tools available to me are: Shell, Read, Write, StrReplace, Delete, Glob, Grep, WebFetch, and MCP resource tools. None of these spawn an  
> independent agent instance.  
> This is exactly the limitation the reproducer is designed to demonstrate – I had to run both sub-agents sequentially in my own context instead of launching  
> them as parallel, isolated agents via a Task tool.

This is similar to my experience using your skill.md as well:

> This test explicitly requires the Task tool to launch 3 parallel subagents – which I don’t have access to. That’s the point of the test: to verify whether  
> the CLI can dispatch subagents.  
> Result: The Task tool is not available. I cannot launch 3 isolated, parallel subagents. I can only perform the work inline sequentially in my own context,  
> which defeats the purpose of the test.

Cursor suggested enabling the max mode to enable the Task tool:

> Your config is correct — max mode is enabled at both the top level and model level. However, the Task tool is simply not being provided to me in this CLI  
> session despite that.  
> Here’s what I can confirm:  
> • Cursor CLI version: 2.5.20  
> • Max mode: true (both model.maxMode and top-level maxMode)  
> • Model: claude-4.6-opus-high-thinking
> 
> The issue is that the Task tool is not injected into the CLI agent’s toolset. My available tools are: Shell, Glob, Grep, Read, Delete, StrReplace, Write,  
> EditNotebook, TodoWrite, WebFetch, ListMcpResources, and FetchMcpResource. There is no Task tool among them.  
> This is likely a Cursor CLI limitation — the Task tool (subagent dispatch) may only be available in the Cursor IDE’s chat/composer panel, not in the cursor  
> agent CLI mode. Even with max mode on, the CLI may not support spawning subagents.

Cursor About Shows:

> Version: 2.5.20 (system setup)  
> VSCode Version: 1.105.1  
> Commit: 511523af765daeb1fa69500ab0df5b6524424610  
> Date: 2026-02-19T20:41:31.942Z  
> Build Type: Stable  
> Release Track: Default  
> Electron: 39.4.0  
> Chromium: 142.0.7444.265  
> Node.js: 22.22.0  
> V8: 14.2.231.22-electron.0  
> OS: Windows\_NT x64 10.0.26100

I see that there’s another ticket along these lines ([Subagents not working in Cursor CLI - Support / Bug Reports - Cursor - Community Forum](https://forum.cursor.com/t/subagents-not-working-in-cursor-cli/151046)).

Thanks!

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