Background subagent wording now names the terminal, desktop app and VS Code
Claude Code's text now says the run-in-background option is withheld when subagents are forced into the background, including with CLAUDE_CODE_FORK_SUBAGENT=1
Under the hoodTier: how much it should matter to you
1Useful: my rating, 1 to 5
2Signal: worth watching, 1 to 5
SubagentsArea: what it touches
Internal ChangesKind: in v2.1.302,
Internal ChangesSection of the release
What
A subagent is a helper agent that Claude starts to handle part of a task. Claude can normally choose to run one in the background with a run_in_background option. Claude Code's internal description of when that option is not offered has been reworded. It now says the option is not offered when subagents are forced into the background, which happens:
It spells out that with fork mode, subagents run in the background, so Claude does not get to choose whether to wait for them.
How sure we are
One source agreesOne thing we can check says the same as this entry.
Anthropic's release notes agreeChanged fork subagents (subagent_type: "fork") to be on by default in claude -p, the Agent SDK, the desktop app and VS Code, as they already…
