Parallel Explore
Use this skill when you need to understand a large or unfamiliar codebase quickly — onboarding onto a new project, investigating how a feature works across layers, or mapping the architecture.
How It Works
Cursor's explore subagent is a fast, read-only agent optimized for searching and reading code. You can launch multiple explore agents in a single message and they run concurrently, each investigating a different area.
Steps
- Identify the areas to explore — break the codebase into logical zones. For a typical full-stack app:
- Frontend: components, pages, routing, state management - Backend: API routes, database models, middleware, auth - Infrastructure: CI/CD, Docker, deployment config - Shared: types, utilities, constants
- Launch parallel explore agents — use the Task tool with
subagent_type: "explore"for each area. Launch them all in one message:Task 1: "Explore the frontend — find the main pages, routing setup, state management approach, and UI component library. Check src/app/, src/components/, src/pages/. Report the framework, router, styling approach, and key components." Task 2: "Explore the backend — find the API routes, database setup, ORM, auth middleware, and data models. Check src/server/, src/api/, lib/, prisma/. Report the framework, database, auth strategy, and key endpoints." Task 3: "Explore the infrastructure — find CI/CD config, Docker setup, deployment targets, and environment variable management. Check.github/, docker*, *.config.*,.env*. Report the deploy target, CI provider, and any IaC." - Synthesize the results — when all agents return, combine their findings into a coherent picture:
- Tech stack summary (frontend, backend, database, infra) - Architecture diagram (describe the data flow) - Key files and entry points - Potential concerns or tech debt
Other Use Cases
- Cross-cutting investigation: "Where is user authentication checked?" — launch agents to search the frontend (route guards), backend (middleware), and database (session storage) simultaneously.
- Dependency audit: launch agents to check different parts of the dependency tree for outdated packages, security issues, and unused imports.
- Migration planning: have agents simultaneously assess the frontend, backend, and tests to estimate the scope of a framework migration.
Notes
- Explore agents are read-only — they can't modify files.
- Use
thoroughness: "very thorough"in the prompt for comprehensive analysis. - Each agent has its own context window, so they can each read many files without running out of space.
- For a single focused question, just use Grep or SemanticSearch directly — subagents are for broad exploration.