{"version":"2.1.288","anchor":"mcp-step-up-auth-dialog-gate-default-flipped-to-on-with-a-n","canonical_anchor":"mcp-step-up-auth-dialog-gate-default-flipped-to-on-with-a-n","heading":"MCP step-up sign-in dialog now defaults to on","tier":"notice","area":"MCP","scope":"individual","heads_up":false,"url":"https:\/\/changelogs.core-directive.com\/v\/2.1.288\/e\/mcp-step-up-auth-dialog-gate-default-flipped-to-on-with-a-n","release_url":"https:\/\/changelogs.core-directive.com\/v\/2.1.288","markdown":"### MCP step-up sign-in dialog now defaults to on\n\nThe dialog for MCP servers that ask you to sign in again with extra permissions now falls back to on when the server sends no setting\n\n**Unclear.** It is not clear what the second remote switch, now read where the old one was, controls.\n\n**What**\n\nSome MCP servers (outside tools and services Claude Code can connect to) ask for \"step-up\" authentication. This means they ask you to sign in again, or grant more access, before a particular action. Claude Code has a dialog for this, and the switch that controls it is decided remotely.\n\nWhen Anthropic's servers send no value for that switch, Claude Code now treats the dialog as on. Before, it treated it as off. The function that used to read this switch now reads a different remote switch, which falls back to off. In a reading taken before this release, Anthropic's servers returned the step-up dialog switch as on for this site's account.\n\n**Why**\n\nIf you use MCP servers that need step-up authentication, you may now see this dialog where you did not before.\n\n- Flag `tengu_mcp_step_up_auth_dialog`: On for this account, and not off by default (read for one account on one subscription tier against v2.1.288; this account: on, anonymous baseline: on, compiled default: on) These values were read against a different version of Claude Code, so treat them as the nearest reading available instead of one taken on this release.\n- Flag `tengu_sorted_otter`: Not enough to say (read for one account on one subscription tier against v2.1.288; this account: no value returned, anonymous baseline: no value returned, compiled default: off) These values were read against a different version of Claude Code, so treat them as the nearest reading available instead of one taken on this release.\n- Flag `tengu_mcp_startup_policy_seed`: Not enough to say (read for one account on one subscription tier against v2.1.288; this account: no value returned, anonymous baseline: no value returned, compiled default: on) These values were read against a different version of Claude Code, so treat them as the nearest reading available instead of one taken on this release.\n- Area: MCP\n- Tier: You'll notice\n- Useful: 3\/5\n- Signal: 2\/5\n- Scope: individual\n- Heads-up: no"}