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Sweep 10 Nov 2026 · 02:18Z Build v2.1.322 539 read Stable v2.1.311 Latest v2.1.322 Next v2.1.322 Feeds RSS JSON llms.txt llms-full.txt Unofficial

Claude Code v2.1.277 ·

AGENTS.md/CLAUDE.md instruction loading revamped: instructionFiles setting, new modes, plugin file stats

Instruction-file loading was renamed to instructionFiles, gained new modes with AGENTS.md fallback as default, and now reports plugin instruction stats

Group of 7 Use it now Internal Changes
JSON All of v2.1.277
Use it nowTier: how much it should matter to you
4Useful: my rating, 1 to 5
4Signal: worth watching, 1 to 5
CLAUDE.md RulesArea: what it touches
Internal ChangesKind: in v2.1.277,
What probably matters to youSection of the release

Unclear Whether this changes any user-visible text or behavior around AGENTS.md is not stated.

What

  • The setting is renamed from projectInstructions to instructionFiles; the old name still works as a deprecated alias but logs a one-time warning telling you to migrate.
  • The recognized modes changed from claude, agents-fallback, both, none to claude-md, claude-md-or-agents-md, claude-md-and-agents-md, managed-only.
  • The default mode is now claude-md-or-agents-md, so a project with no CLAUDE.md of its own now automatically gets its AGENTS.md files loaded instead, without needing to turn anything on.
  • New telemetry events (agents_md_load, agents_md_nested) record file count, import count, total content length, and whether the file walk succeeded or failed, tagged by the resolved mode.
  • Project context-loading results now always include a pluginInstructionFiles field (with fileCount and totalContentLength) alongside the existing claudeMd, instructionFiles, and memoryFiles fields.

Why

This clarifies and simplifies how Claude Code decides which project instruction files (CLAUDE.md, AGENTS.md) to load, makes AGENTS.md usable out of the box for projects that don't have their own CLAUDE.md, and gives better visibility into which instruction files, including ones contributed by plugins, actually got loaded.

How sure we are
Something disagreesSomething we can check disagrees with this entry, or the writer said they could not settle it.
The writer flagged doubtWhether this changes any user-visible text or behavior around AGENTS.md is not stated.

See this entry in the whole of v2.1.277 →

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