Unclear It is not clear what makes the search service available, so it is unknown which setups get this routing.
The WebSearch tool is how Claude looks things up on the web. It can now send a search through a separate search service when one is present. Before, searches only went through the existing proxy route or a direct web search request. When the service is present:
- The service can refuse a search before it runs
- The search itself runs through the service
- Results come back labelled
search-service-1 - Results include a note saying how many were left out by your allowed or blocked domain lists
For subagents (helper agents Claude starts to work on part of a task), linking parts of the answer to their sources still depends on CLAUDE_CODE_WEBSEARCH_CITATIONS. The tool's own description is unchanged in this release.
This changes where web searches actually run, which matters most in embedded or hosted setups where Claude Code is built into another product.
tengu_plum_vx3 Off by default, switched on for this accountThe shipped code defaults this off, and the flag server returned on for the one account this site reads on this version. That is the reading that makes the entry above worth a second look, and it still says nothing about your account.
This account: on · anonymous baseline: on · compiled default in v2.1.317: 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.
Read once, for one account on one subscription tier, against v2.1.317. It isn't a statement about your account. What a flag value here can and cannot tell you
It is not clear what makes the search service available, so it is unknown which setups get this routing.