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 fork is a copy of the current Claude that goes off to do a side task. Claude's built-in instructions explain forks. They used to always say a fork runs in the background so Claude can keep chatting with you.
Now that part appears only when a certain check passes. Otherwise the instructions say only that the fork "keeps its tool output out of your context", meaning the results of its work do not fill up Claude's main conversation.
Why
This suggests forks may sometimes run in the foreground, with the instructions worded to match.