A Claude Code environment variable, read out of the shipped bundle.
It has been in the build since v2.1.198, including the newest one read.
How many milliseconds of idle time before an unanswered AskUserQuestion dialog auto-continues without you. Auto-continue is off by default; opt in with the askUserQuestionTimeout setting. This variable is an override for demos and automated tests: when set, it takes precedence over that setting and turns auto-continue on even when the setting is unset or never. Setting 0 doesn't turn the timeout off; it closes the dialog immediately. In v2.1.198 and v2.1.199, auto-continue was on by default with a 60000 (60 seconds) timeout. Requires Claude Code v2.1.198 or later
Away-from-keyboard auto-answers now bail out if you interacted first; set afkTimeoutMs or CLAUDE_AFK_TIMEOUT_MS.
named in this entry, found in this entry's text
First cited
1
The earliest release whose published evidence quoted CLAUDE_AFK_TIMEOUT_MS was v2.1.248, 27 Aug 2026. That is the oldest release this project wrote about it, so it is a floor on the name's age and not the release that introduced it. It is not a presence reading: which builds carried the name is the table below.
v2.1.198 – v2.1.30899 builds1 Jul 2026 → 22 Oct 2026 ◆in the build
Build by build
99
One row per release since the first build this name was read out of. Absent means the build was read and the name was not in it, never mined means no bundle for that release was ever archived, and a declared type or a default is only ever what that release's own bundle stated.
Read out of the published npm bundle release by release, and out of Anthropic's own documentation as this site captured it. Nothing on this page is a description anybody here wrote about what the environment variable does. All environment variables.
