What
--permission-mode is a command-line option that picks the permission mode a session starts in, meaning how Claude Code asks before taking actions. At startup Claude Code turns that option into a request it sends internally. That request is now skipped when Claude Code is running in serve-only mode.
Why
In serve-only mode, the permission mode given with --permission-mode is not applied through this startup request.
Names in the bundle--permission-mode
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 since
Anthropic's documentation has since written up --permission-mode, on Manage multiple agents with agent view.
| v2.1.274 | After an auto-update, an agent view you've been away from for about an hour can relaunch itself onto the new build. When it does, it keeps the [dispatch defaults](#dispatch-defaults) you opened it with: `--model`, `--effort`, …agent-view see the edit
Something disagreesSomething we can check disagrees with this entry, or the writer said they could not settle it.
The writer flagged doubt
The finding does not say how serve-only mode is turned on or whether the permission mode is applied some other way there.
Anthropic's documentation agrees
Anthropic's documentation has since written up --permission-mode, on Manage multiple agents with agent view.