InspectSessions
Collaborate with Inspect in an isolated workspace from request through delivery.
Session basics
A session is a durable conversation plus an isolated workspace. Create one in the web app or from Slack. Inspect reads the request, explores relevant context, uses tools, and reports results in the same conversation.
Best practices
- State the outcome and who benefits.
- Name the repository when the surrounding context does not.
- Include errors, screenshots, links, or acceptance criteria that define success.
- Call out hard constraints, but let Inspect discover the smallest correct implementation.
- Stay in the conversation: redirect work or answer questions while it runs.
Scope
One coherent outcome per session is easier to review than a list of unrelated chores.
Child sessions and subagents
Subagents are lightweight workers that share the current session’s workspace and git state. Use them for focused research, review, or implementation that should feed directly back into the current session.
Child sessions are full Inspect sessions with separate workspaces and git state. Use them when work needs its own branch or pull request, should run in another repository, or needs an independently addressable conversation.
Both run asynchronously and report results to the parent session. Continue working instead of polling them for status.
Examples
Subagent: “Ask a subagent to inspect the webhook retry logic and report likely failure modes while you update the runbook.”
Child session: “Start a child session in the payments repository to add webhook idempotency and prepare it for review.”
Real-life examples
Bug fix: “Customers see a blank page after removing the last receipt. Reproduce it, fix the empty state, and add a regression test.”
Investigation: “Why did checkout latency increase this morning? Compare recent deploys, traces, and errors; report the most likely cause without changing code.”
Cross-repository work: “Add the API field in Core and surface it in Web. Keep both changes coordinated and explain the contract.”