The full upstream README, mirrored here for reference. Install config, tool schemas, adoption signals, and an original overview live on the Opencode subagents listing page.
Run Claude Code subagents on cheaper opencode models — for example
opencode-go/deepseek-v4.1-flash (DeepSeek) from an opencode Go subscription — while Claude
Code itself keeps talking to Anthropic directly. Delegate searches, refactors, bug fixes, tests
and research to a model that costs a fraction of Opus or Sonnet, and keep the tools you already
use: background agents, resume via send_message, worktree isolation, .claude/agents
definitions, permission prompts and structured output.
It is a stdio MCP server. Your main Claude Code session is not proxied or routed
anywhere; the server only runs the subagents you delegate to it, on a private
opencode serve instance it starts itself.
Requires Node 22+, git, and the opencode CLI logged in to the
providers you want (opencode auth login).
As a Claude Code plugin (also adds a skill that tells Claude when to delegate to opencode):
Or as a plain MCP server:
opencode serve process on a random localhost port with a random
password, and stops it when Claude Code exits. The password is generated for each run and
only used between this server and that local process. The process inherits your environment
so opencode can use the provider logins and API keys you already configured for it; this
server never reads, stores or sends those credentials itself.~/.claude/settings.json, the project's .claude/settings.json and
.claude/settings.local.json, and .claude/agents/*.md (user and project) to mirror your
permission rules and agent definitions, and
~/.config/opencode-subagent-mcp/config.json if present.isolation: "worktree" it creates git worktrees under the project's
.claude/worktrees/ and removes them when they have no changes.This is an independent project, not affiliated with Anthropic or the opencode team.
| Tool | Native equivalent | What it does |
|---|---|---|
agent | Agent tool | Run a subagent; returns its final report, usage and worktree outcome |
send_message | SendMessage | Continue a finished agent with its full history; also after a restart |
wait | background completion notification | Collect a run_in_background agent (optionally with a timeout) |
stop | TaskStop | Abort a running agent and return what it produced |
list | /agents | This session's agents, Claude agent definitions and opencode agents |
An agent_id keeps working after the MCP server or Claude Code restarts: wait and stop
return what happened to it, and send_message continues it. Agents from before a restart do not
appear in list until their id is used again, but they still exist in opencode's local session
store.
agent parameters: description, prompt, subagent_type, model, isolation: "worktree",
permission_mode, tools, disallowed_tools, max_turns, effort, output_schema,
run_in_background, cwd.
| Native behaviour | Here |
|---|---|
| Fresh context, only the final message comes back | Same. Long output is truncated (maxResultChars) with the full text written to a file |
| Runs in the project directory | Same (cwd from MCP roots, then CLAUDE_PROJECT_DIR, then the server's cwd) |
isolation: worktree | Same layout (.claude/worktrees/<name>, branch worktree-<name>, based on the default branch). Removed when unchanged, kept with commit/file summary otherwise. Outside paths are denied |
| Permission prompts surface in the main session | opencode ask rules are shown as MCP elicitation dialogs (allow once / always / deny, with optional feedback) |
| Permission modes | default, acceptEdits, auto, bypassPermissions, plan mapped to opencode rules; your Claude permissions.allow/ask/deny from user, project and local settings apply |
| Background agents with completion notification | Claude Code moves long MCP calls to the background automatically and notifies when they finish; run_in_background + wait for explicit control |
| Resume with full history | send_message (also works for agents from earlier sessions or after a restart, since opencode persists them) |
.claude/agents/*.md definitions | Used via subagent_type: prompt, tools, disallowedTools, permissionMode, maxTurns, effort, isolation. model applies only when it is an opencode provider/model |
maxTurns returns partial output | Same; status max_turns, resumable |
| Progress in the UI | Tool calls are sent as MCP progress notifications |
| Subagents cannot spawn subagents or ask the user questions | opencode's task and question tools are disabled |
| Structured output | output_schema (JSON Schema) → opencode structured output, returned as structuredContent |
Known gaps: agents do not appear in Claude Code's /tasks agent view; there is no
fork-with-parent-context; the Workflow tool's agent() cannot target them; auto mode has no
safety classifier (it allows everything, including paths outside the project, except rules
you configured and a fixed list of destructive commands that ask: rm -r/-rf, git push --force, git reset --hard, git clean -f, git restore/git checkout --, curl | sh,
sudo, chmod -R/chown -R, dd, mkfs, npm/pnpm publish; opencode matches each
command in a chain separately); the parent's permission mode is not visible to MCP servers, so
the default comes from config; hooks, skills preloading, memory and per-agent MCP servers are not mapped.
Claude Code picks between its native Agent tool and this one on its own, so routing is
unpredictable. To make opencode the default for delegated work that is cheap to verify, paste the snippet from docs/claude-md-snippet.md into
your global ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md.
Optional ~/.config/opencode-subagent-mcp/config.json (or $OPENCODE_SUBAGENT_CONFIG):
OPENCODE_SUBAGENT_MODEL and OPENCODE_SUBAGENT_MODE override the first two. pure starts
opencode without external plugins.
On first use the server starts opencode serve on a random loopback port with a random
password, subscribes to its event stream, and drives one opencode session per agent
(agent id = session id). Permission requests from opencode are answered through MCP
elicitation. The opencode process is stopped with the MCP server; leftovers from crashed
servers are reaped on the next start.
MIT