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The investigation contains several bounded research questions that can be delegated independently: locating the complete test suite, tracing payment and refund flows, identifying conditional branches, and mapping external dependencies. Each subagent can read the relevant files in its own context and return a focused summary to the coordinating agent.

Anthropic recommends subagents for codebase exploration because extensive file reading rapidly consumes the main context window. Subagents isolate that volume and return only their conclusions, preserving the main conversation for synthesis and implementation. ( https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/claude-code/common-workflows ) Anthropic also describes parallel research as appropriate when separate investigation paths can proceed independently and the main agent can synthesize the results afterward. ( https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/claude-code/sub-agents )

Option B sacrifices the current conversational state and requires reconstruction after /clear . Option C may reduce token usage, but isolated text matches cannot reliably reveal full execution paths, indirect calls, or test coverage relationships. Option D converts the current analysis into a single lossy summary and risks omitting details needed later.

Option A directly addresses the demonstrated context degradation while retaining a high-level coordinating thread. The subagent prompts should be narrowly scoped and require concrete outputs such as file paths, uncovered branches, call-chain evidence, and existing tests associated with each flow.

Official references/topics: Subagent Context Isolation; Parallel Research; Context Preservation; Coordinated Codebase Analysis.