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Sweep 06 Nov 2026 · 01:32Z Build v2.1.319 537 read Stable v2.1.311 Latest v2.1.318 Next v2.1.319 Feeds RSS JSON llms.txt llms-full.txt Unofficial
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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 Notable New Features
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
SettingsArea: what it touches
New FeaturesKind: in v2.1.277,
What probably matters to youSection of the release

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.

Read from
Names in the bundleinstructionFilesprojectInstructions
What the documentation says
Documented inclaude-code/memory
Since it was published

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.

Added since A small documentation edit on All settings touched a line naming instructionFiles after this was published. Built-in plugins store their options under the same key with an `@builtin` suffix. For example, the [**Project instructions**](/docs/en/memory#choose-which-instruction-files-load) setting that controls whether Claude Code reads `AGENTS.md`… settings-reference see the edit
How sure we are
One source agreesOne thing we can check says the same as this entry.
Anthropic's documentation agreesA small documentation edit on All settings touched a line naming instructionFiles after this was published.

See this entry in the whole of v2.1.277 →

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