What
When Claude Code runs without its interactive screen (through the SDK, the toolkit developers use to drive Claude Code from their own programs, or in print mode, where it answers once and exits), the session now keeps a way to reload plugins. When a plugin folder it is watching changes, it can refresh:
- agents, the specialised helpers a plugin can define
- commands, the slash commands a plugin adds
- plugin MCP servers, the external tool connections a plugin brings along
The same mechanism can also add another plugin folder to the session or point it at a different one. A reload can come back as "held", meaning it was not applied straight away.
Why
If you are building a plugin and testing it through the SDK, your edits could be picked up by a running session without starting it again.
Something disagreesSomething we can check disagrees with this entry, or the writer said they could not settle it.
The writer flagged doubt
It is not clear what starts the folder watching or whether a setting or remote switch controls it.