What probably matters to youSection of the release
What
The admin-controlled policyHelpers config, which computes managed settings at startup, now accepts a script plus interpreter pair as an alternative to path. The script is handed to the interpreter over stdin and never written to disk. It is capped at 65536 characters, must be NUL-free valid UTF-8, and must be ASCII-only on Windows. The interpreter is fixed per operating system: sh on macOS, Linux and WSL, pwsh on Windows.
Details
Validation now requires each entry to carry path, or script + interpreter, and/or defaultSettings (a static settings payload); mixing path with script is rejected.
Inline scripts only work on the per-OS policyHelpers map. On the older singular policyHelper key they are refused with "inline scripts are not supported on the singular policyHelper key".
Execution is /bin/sh -s over stdin, or pwsh with -Command wrapping the script in a fixed fragment ending catch { Write-Error $_; exit 1 }; exit $LASTEXITCODE.
No feature flag guards the parser; it is reachable for anyone whose admin-controlled policy settings carry such an entry. None of this vocabulary existed in v2.1.233.
Evidence
Inline helper script, delivered to the fixed interpreter over stdin (never written to disk), inline scripts are not supported on the singular policyHelper key
Strings lifted out of the shipped bundle, so the claim above can be checked against them.
The entry above is what we published on the day. These lines were added later, as Anthropic's own pages caught up, and they sit beside the original rather than replacing it.
Confirmed sinceAnthropic's documentation has since written up interpreter, on Configure auto mode.By default, narrow Bash and PowerShell allow rules such as `Bash(npm test)` stay in effect in auto mode. Claude Code resolves them before the classifier runs, unless the command carries [per-command allowed domains](/docs/en/sandboxing#per…auto-mode-configsee the edit
Added sinceA small documentation edit on Changelog touched a line naming script after this was published.<Update label="Known issue: Cowork on Windows" description="2026-09-10">cowork/changelogsee the edit
Confirmed sinceAnthropic's documentation has since written up script, on MCP, plugins, skills, and hooks.| `.claude-plugin/plugin.json` | **Required.** Plugin manifest (name, description, version). Directories without this file are ignored. |third-party/claude-desktop/extensionssee the edit
How sure we are
One source agreesOne thing we can check says the same as this entry.
Anthropic's documentation agreesAnthropic's documentation has since written up script, on MCP, plugins, skills, and hooks.
