> that sub-agent can go consume 250k+ context to return an answer that might be a couple of words
How can the parent agent verify the answer without reading some of the context of the sub-agent?
How can the parent agent verify the answer without reading some of the context of the sub-agent?
But usually verifying the answer is cheaper than finding the answer, so it can be done. The prompt given to the sub-agent can be a question with "and explain your answer", the answer to which will still consume far less context than figuring out the answer.
Of course it has to. The subagent might have misunderstood and spent 250k tokens smoking crack. If that output is blindly trusted the parent agent might go on to burn millions of tokens going in the wrong direction, completely negating the point of using a subagent in the first place.