Whenever Claude Code searches your codebase, it spawns the built-in Explore subagent to run Glob, Grep, and Read calls in an isolated context. By default, Explore inherits your main session model. If you are running Opus or Sonnet, every file search and grep fan-out burns your 5-hour plan quota at Opus or Sonnet rates. You can override the built-in Explore agent by creating .claude/agents/Explore.md (or ~/.claude/agents/Explore.md for all projects) with model: haiku in the frontmatter:
name: Explore description: Fast read-only codebase exploration and search.
model: haiku
Use Glob, Grep, and Read to locate files and symbols. Return concise file paths and line numbers to the main agent. ```
Or if you want every subagent in a session to run on Haiku without adding a file, launch Claude Code with the environment variable:
bash CLAUDE_CODE_SUBAGENT_MODEL=haiku claude
Keeping the main session on Opus or Sonnet for edits while routing read-only search subagents to Haiku stretched our 5-hour usage window noticeably without hurting edit quality.
submitted by
/u/Independent-Sir3234
Originally posted by u/Independent-Sir3234 on r/ClaudeCodeYou must log in or # to comment.