You'll noticeTier: how much it should matter to you
2Useful: my rating, 1 to 5
1Signal: worth watching, 1 to 5
AgentsArea: what it touches
Bug FixesKind: in v2.1.281,
Bug FixesSection of the release
What
Claude Code can start helper instances, called teammates or agents, that work alongside the main one. The command it builds to start them now passes along these options from your own command line:
--managed-settings, rewritten as normalized JSON, or "invalid" if it could not be read
every --mcp-config, with inline JSON rewritten in a standard form
Teammates opened in tmux windows (a tool that splits one terminal into several) also receive an extra argument carrying environment and options.
Why
Helpers now start with the same MCP servers (outside tools and data sources Claude can connect to) and the same managed settings as the session that launched them. If you use --strict-mcp-config to allow only certain servers, that limit now applies to helpers too.
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 --strict-mcp-config, on Agent SDK reference - Python.| `strict_mcp_config` | `bool` | `False` | When `True`, use only the servers passed in `mcp_servers` and ignore project `.mcp.json`, user settings, plugin-provided MCP servers, and [claude.ai connectors](/docs/en/mcp#use-mcp-servers-from-c…agent-sdk/pythonsee the edit
Confirmed sinceAnthropic's documentation has since written up --mcp-config, on Environment variables.| `CLAUDE_CODE_SIMPLE` | Set to `1` to run with a minimal system prompt and only the Bash, file read, and file edit tools. MCP tools from `--mcp-config` are still available. Disables auto-discovery of hooks, skills, custom commands, subage…env-varssee 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 --mcp-config, on Environment variables.
