CLAUDE_CODE_DISABLE_POWERSHELL_CMD_RM_DENY
A Claude Code environment variable, read out of the shipped bundle. It has been in the build since v2.1.283, including the newest one read.
Set to 1 to turn off the PowerShell tool check that denies the cmd built-ins rd, rmdir, del, and erase on a system path, such as a drive root or your home directory. Claude Code ignores this variable in a settings file's env block. Requires Claude Code v2.1.283 or later
Anthropic's own wording. Read off Environment variables, captured 2026-09-26.
In the changelogs
2Releases whose published page names CLAUDE_CODE_DISABLE_POWERSHELL_CMD_RM_DENY.
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v2.1.283
PowerShell blocks cmd.exe deletes aimed at drive roots or the home folder
Delete commands like
rdordelrun through cmd.exe are now blocked when they target a drive root, a top folder or homefound in this entry's text
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v2.1.283
PowerShell commands can no longer use cmd to delete drive roots or your home folder
Claude Code now refuses rd, rmdir, del and erase run through cmd inside PowerShell when they target a drive root or your home folder
found in this entry's text
First cited
1The earliest release whose published evidence quoted CLAUDE_CODE_DISABLE_POWERSHELL_CMD_RM_DENY was v2.1.283, 25 Sep 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.
Presence across releases
1Build by build
1One 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.