scopeai 0.1.1

Subagent orchestration for Claude Code

scope

Your context is rotting. Scope fixes that.

Every task you give Claude Code accumulates context: file contents, failed attempts, exploratory tangents. When compaction kicks in, critical details vanish. Your main session becomes a diluted mess of half-remembered explorations.

Scope solves this by spawning purpose-specific subagents. Each subagent gets a fresh context, does one job, and returns only the relevant result. Your main session stays lean—you orchestrate and synthesize, not accumulate.

The Problem

Main Session Context Over Time:

Start:    [████████████████████████████████████████] 100% relevant
After 3   [████████░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░] 20% relevant
  tasks:  ↑ file reads, dead ends, tangents, old completions

After     [██░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░] 5% relevant
compaction: ↑ critical details lost in summarization

This is context rot. The more you do in one session, the worse your context-to-relevance ratio becomes. Summarization doesn't help—it discards the wrong things.

The Solution

With Scope:

Main:     [████████████████████████████████████████] orchestration + results only
          ↓ spawn
Subagent: [████████████████░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░] does one job, returns summary
          ↑ fresh context, focused task, clean result

Each subagent:

• Starts with fresh context (no accumulated baggage)
• Has a single purpose (no scope creep)
• Returns only what matters (you get the result, not the journey)

Your main session becomes a coordinator, not a garbage collector.

Quick Start

# Install
uv tool install scopeai

# Or run directly without installing
uvx scopeai top

# Run setup (installs hooks, checks dependencies)
scope setup

# Launch the dashboard
scope top

That's it. Now from any Claude Code session:

# Spawn a subagent
id=$(scope spawn "implement user authentication")

# Wait for result
scope wait $id

Scope vs Task Tool

	Task Tool	Scope
Visibility	Opaque black box	Real-time dashboard
Intervention	None—wait and hope	Attach, steer, abort anytime
Context	Shares parent context	Fresh context per agent
Parallelism	Sequential only	Spawn many in parallel
Nesting	Limited	Unlimited hierarchy
Debugging	Results only	Full session inspection

The Task tool is a blind subprocess. Scope gives you a visible, controllable swarm.

Usage

For Humans: scope top

scope top

┌─ scope ────────────────────────────────────────────────── 3 running ─┐
│                                                                      │
│  ▼ 0   Refactor auth to JWT        ● running   waiting on children   │
│    ├ 0.0  Extract JWT helpers      ● running   editing token.ts      │
│    └ 0.1  Update middleware        ✓ done      ─                     │
│  ▶ 1   Write tests for user module ● running   jest --watch          │
│                                                                      │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  n new   ↵ attach   x abort   d hide done   q quit                   │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Key	Action
n	New session (opens Claude Code in split pane)
enter	Attach to selected session
x	Abort selected (and descendants)
j/k	Navigate
h/l	Collapse/expand
d	Toggle completed sessions
q	Quit (sessions keep running)

For Claude Code: Programmatic Interface

# Spawn a subagent
id=$(scope spawn "Write tests for auth module" --input src/auth/)
# Returns: 0

# Check status (non-blocking)
scope poll $id
# Returns: {"status": "running", "activity": "editing test_auth.py"}

# Wait for completion (blocking)
scope wait $id
# Returns: {"status": "done", "result": "..."}

DAG Orchestration

Model complex tasks as a dependency graph:

# Declare the full DAG upfront
scope spawn "research auth patterns" --id research
scope spawn "audit current codebase" --id audit
scope spawn "implement auth" --id impl --after research,audit
scope spawn "write tests" --id tests --after impl
scope spawn "update docs" --id docs --after impl

# Wait only on leaf nodes—dependencies auto-resolve
scope wait tests docs

Nesting

Subagents can spawn children. Nesting is automatic via SCOPE_SESSION_ID:

# Inside session 0, this creates 0.0
scope spawn "Extract JWT helpers"

# Inside session 0.0, this creates 0.0.0
scope spawn "Parse token format"

Why Parallelism is a Bonus

Yes, scope lets you run tasks in parallel. But that's not why you should use it.

You should use scope because single-session context management is fundamentally broken. Even if you only ever run one subagent at a time, you win:

• Fresh context for each task
• Clean results without journey baggage
• Main session stays lean and relevant
• No more losing critical details to compaction

Parallelism just means you can do this faster.

How It Works

• Each session is a real Claude Code process in tmux
• State lives in .scope/sessions/ (inspectable with standard Unix tools)
• Hooks track activity automatically (no model self-reporting)
• scope top watches for changes and updates instantly

See docs/02-architecture.md for technical details.

Philosophy

1. Transparency over magic — No black boxes. The subagent's state is your state.
2. Control over autonomy — Intervention is a first-class feature.
3. Contracts over conversations — Inputs and outputs are explicit.
4. Minimalism over ceremony — One command to spawn, one interface to observe.

See docs/00-philosophy.md for the full design philosophy.

Requirements

• Python 3.10+
• tmux
• Claude Code

License

MIT