A Claude Code environment variable, read out of the shipped bundle.
It has been in the build since v2.1.138, including the newest one read.
What to do when the background daemon is needed and none is running. A value of transient or ask overrides the daemonColdStart setting; any other value is ignored, and with neither set the default is ask when the tengu_quiet_harbor flag is on and transient otherwise. With ask, Claude Code returns a prompt to run claude daemon install instead of spawning a transient daemon, as long as an extra check passes and the install prompt has not been dismissed.
Not Anthropic's. Written by Claude Opus 5.5 from reading the v2.1.286 bundle, and it can be wrong.
First seen v2.1.138 9 May 2026
Last seen v2.1.308 22 Oct 2026
Builds149 / 149on this box, as of v2.1.308
Written about v2.1.120 first named in a changelog, 24 Apr 2026
v2.1.138in the build not in the build never minedv2.1.308
In the changelogs
2
Releases whose published page names CLAUDE_CODE_DAEMON_COLD_START.
No release's published evidence quotes this name. The ledger indexes the Evidence lines of every changelog on this site, so this says nobody here has ever quoted it; it says nothing about how old the name is.
Presence across releases
1
BuildsHow manyDatesReading
v2.1.138 – v2.1.308149 builds9 May 2026 → 22 Oct 2026 ◆in the build
Build by build
149
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.
v2.1.29914 Oct 2026·presentverdict: present · bool
v2.1.30014 Oct 2026·presentverdict: present · bool
v2.1.30115 Oct 2026·presentverdict: present · bool
v2.1.30216 Oct 2026·presentverdict: present · bool
v2.1.30318 Oct 2026·presentverdict: present · bool
v2.1.30419 Oct 2026·presentverdict: present · bool
v2.1.30520 Oct 2026·presentverdict: present · bool
v2.1.30621 Oct 2026·presentverdict: present · bool
v2.1.30721 Oct 2026·presentverdict: present · bool
v2.1.30822 Oct 2026·presentverdict: present · bool
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.
