Thorsten Ball, a prominent figure behind the agentic coding tool Amp, recently announced a significant advancement in terminal-based development with the introduction of "subagents." In a tweet, Ball stated, "Our next step towards more agents in the terminal: amp -x https://t.co/5zdeksE9Nd," signaling a new era for autonomous coding within the command line environment. This development is poised to further integrate AI capabilities directly into developers' workflows.
Amp, developed by Sourcegraph, is an agentic coding tool engineered to maximize the potential of frontier models for autonomous reasoning, comprehensive code editing, and complex task execution. Thorsten Ball has consistently championed the transformative power of AI in coding, asserting that the ability to "talk to an alien intelligence that edits your code changes everything." The tool operates both as a VS Code extension and a command-line interface (CLI) utility.
The newly introduced subagents represent a significant leap in Amp's capabilities. According to an ampcode.com article authored by Ball on June 10, 2025, these subagents are distinct AI entities that can be initiated by the main Amp agent. Crucially, they possess the full range of functionalities available to the primary agent, including the ability to manipulate files and execute commands directly within the terminal.
Unlike previous iterations that were limited to reading codebases, these enhanced subagents can autonomously make decisions and undertake complex tasks. Ball highlighted their potential by explaining that instead of merely running a single terminal command, a subagent can be instructed to "run this command 5 times and report back to me how the output changed with each invocation." This capability enables advanced automation and analytical processes directly from the terminal.
The amp -x command, as hinted in Ball's tweet, appears to be the gateway to leveraging these extended agent functionalities within the terminal. This move aligns with a broader industry trend of bringing powerful agentic AI tools back to the command line, offering developers a streamlined and highly integrated environment for AI-assisted coding. Amp's continuous evolution aims to make AI an even more integral and autonomous partner in software development.