Subgoal
A smaller milestone the agent aims for on the way to the real goal.
Think of it like
“Reach the halfway town by noon” — not the final destination, but a checkpoint that proves you’re on track.
Example
To reach “ship the feature,” a subgoal is “get the build passing,” which must be true before the rest can happen.
How it actually works
Subgoals break a distant objective into reachable milestones, giving the agent nearer targets to plan toward and clear signals of progress. They’re especially useful on long tasks where the final goal is many steps away and the agent would otherwise lose the thread. The risk is optimizing a subgoal at the expense of the real one — hitting the milestone while missing the point.
For product teams
Milestones for machines — they keep long agent runs pointed the right way.
For engineers
An intermediate objective on the path to the goal, used to structure planning and measure progress.
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