Unclear What Claude Code does differently when a change only touches autoMode rules is not settled.
Claude Code sorts settings changes by their effect, and one kind is a change that restricts what Claude may do. That kind now also records whether the only restricting key is autoMode, the setting that adds your own allow and deny rules to the auto mode classifier. It does so when that key's entries are only allow rules, environment entries, or values that fail a further check.
It looks like changes limited to autoMode rules are treated differently when Claude Code decides whether to trust or approve settings.
The entry above is what we published on the day. These lines were added later, as Anthropic's own pages caught up, and they sit beside the original rather than replacing it.
* Changed `autoModeEnabled` set to `false` through device management to take effect without a restart. At the app's next configuration check (every 10 minutes by default), running Cowork tasks and Code sessions, except WSL sessions, leave …cowork/changelog see the edit
What Claude Code does differently when a change only touches autoMode rules is not settled.
Anthropic's documentation has since written up autoMode, on Changelog.