{"version":"2.1.323","anchor":"headless-plugin-install-progress-docs-background-mode-only","canonical_anchor":"headless-plugin-install-progress-docs-background-mode-only","heading":"SDK docs explain CLAUDE_CODE_SYNC_PLUGIN_INSTALL and managed plugin errors","tier":"use","area":"Plugins","scope":"both","heads_up":false,"url":"https:\/\/changelogs.core-directive.com\/v\/2.1.323\/e\/headless-plugin-install-progress-docs-background-mode-only","release_url":"https:\/\/changelogs.core-directive.com\/v\/2.1.323","markdown":"### SDK docs explain CLAUDE_CODE_SYNC_PLUGIN_INSTALL and managed plugin errors\n\nSDK schema descriptions now cover background plugin installs, managed-settings plugin errors, and CI use of `CLAUDE_CODE_SYNC_PLUGIN_INSTALL`\n\n**What**\n\nThe Agent SDK lets programs run Claude Code without the interactive screen. Its schema descriptions, the built-in documentation for the messages it sends, were updated around plugin installation.\n\n- Install progress: without the environment variable `CLAUDE_CODE_SYNC_PLUGIN_INSTALL`, plugins install in the background. In that case the install progress messages reach only the Claude desktop app, over a local standard-output connection.\n\n- `plugin_errors`: now also reports plugins enabled by managed settings (organization-controlled settings) that failed to load. Over connections that may store messages, these entries carry one fixed sentence with no file path.\n\n- CI warning: a check on `plugin_errors` in automated testing (CI) can trip on a throwaway machine that has no copy of the plugin, and `CLAUDE_CODE_SYNC_PLUGIN_INSTALL=1` makes the first turn wait for the install.\n\n**Why**\n\nIf you run Claude Code in automation, background installs can make plugin errors appear that are not real failures. Setting `CLAUDE_CODE_SYNC_PLUGIN_INSTALL=1` makes the first turn wait so plugins are in place before work starts.\n\n- Area: Plugins\n- Names: `CLAUDE_CODE_SYNC_PLUGIN_INSTALL`\n- Tier: Use it now\n- Useful: 2\/5\n- Signal: 2\/5\n- Scope: both\n- Heads-up: no"}