What
When the model refuses a request for safety reasons, Claude Code will silently retry with a designated fallback model. If the fallback model responds successfully, the conversation continues as if nothing happened; if the fallback also refuses, the refusal is shown normally.
Status
Feature-flagged. Gated by a server-side refusal_fallback_prompt feature flag that must be present in the account's beta header list.
Details
- A
refusalFallbackModelLatchtracks which fallback model was activated and what the previous model override was, so the model is restored after the retry turn - The detection function
fTK()returnsfalseunlessOn8()(refusal continuation enabled) ANDrefusal_fallback_promptis absent from the beta list - Infrastructure includes latch set/clear/update functions and a
refusalFallbackOccurredflag for telemetry
Evidence
Gated by server-side flag (search for "refusal_fallback_prompt") — fTK() at line ~122285, refusalFallbackModelLatch state at line ~2551
Strings lifted out of the shipped bundle, so the claim above can be checked against them.