The Stacks project

Proof. The equality on the right follows from Lemma 13.36.1. It is clear that $\langle E \rangle = \bigcup \langle E \rangle _ n$ contains $E$, is preserved under shifts, direct sums, direct summands. If $A \in \langle E \rangle _ a$ and $B \in \langle E \rangle _ b$ and if $A \to X \to B \to A[1]$ is a distinguished triangle, then $X \in \langle E \rangle _{a + b}$ by Lemma 13.36.1. Hence $\bigcup \langle E \rangle _ n$ is also preserved under extensions and it follows that it is a triangulated subcategory.

Finally, let $\mathcal{D}' \subset \mathcal{D}$ be a strictly full, saturated, triangulated subcategory of $\mathcal{D}$ containing $E$. Then $\mathcal{D}'[-\infty , \infty ] \subset \mathcal{D}'$, $add(\mathcal{D}) \subset \mathcal{D}'$, $smd(\mathcal{D}') \subset \mathcal{D}'$, and $\mathcal{D}' \star \mathcal{D}' \subset \mathcal{D}'$. In other words, all the operations we used to construct $\langle E \rangle$ out of $E$ preserve $\mathcal{D}'$. Hence $\langle E \rangle \subset \mathcal{D}'$ and this finishes the proof. $\square$