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Claude Code Issues / #23420

[BUG] Agent Teams tools not injected despite CLAUDE_CODE_EXPERIMENTAL_AGENT_TEAMS=1

Resolved 💬 18 comments Opened Feb 5, 2026 by dhofheinz Closed Feb 6, 2026

Preflight Checklist

  • [x] I have searched existing issues and this hasn't been reported yet
  • [x] This is a single bug report (please file separate reports for different bugs)
  • [x] I am using the latest version of Claude Code

What's Wrong?

With CLAUDE_CODE_EXPERIMENTAL_AGENT_TEAMS set to "1" in global settings (~/.claude/settings.json) and confirmed present in the shell environment, the Agent Teams tools (TeammateTool, SendMessage, spawnTeam) are not loaded into the session.

The model receives the following system instruction that explicitly disables the feature:

Note: The "Agent Teams" feature (TeammateTool, SendMessage, spawnTeam) is not available on this plan. Only mention this if the user explicitly asks for "agent teams" by name, or asks for agents to send messages to each other (peer-to-peer messaging). Do NOT mention this limitation when users ask for parallel subagents, coordinating agents, launching a "team" of agents, or having agents work together — those are all normal Task tool usage and you should proceed normally.

This instruction appears to be injected regardless of whether the experimental flag is set. Other users on the same plan (Max 20x) report the feature working correctly with the same flag.

What Should Happen?

When CLAUDE_CODE_EXPERIMENTAL_AGENT_TEAMS=1 is set, the session should load TeammateTool, SendMessage, and spawnTeam tools, and the system instruction should not contain the "not available on this plan" note.

Error Messages/Logs

No error — the tools simply aren't present. When asked what tools are available,
TeammateTool/SendMessage/spawnTeam are absent from the tool list. The model's
system instructions explicitly state the feature is unavailable.

Steps to Reproduce

  1. Set CLAUDE_CODE_EXPERIMENTAL_AGENT_TEAMS to "1" in ~/.claude/settings.json under env
  2. Confirm with echo $CLAUDE_CODE_EXPERIMENTAL_AGENT_TEAMS → 1
  3. Start a new Claude Code session
  4. Ask the model to list its available tools — no team tools present
  5. Ask to create an agent team — model reports feature unavailable

Claude Model

Opus 4.6

Claude Code Version

2.1.32

Platform

Max (20x)

Operating System

Linux (WSL2) — 6.6.87.2-microsoft-standard-WSL2

Terminal/Shell

WSL2 terminal

Additional Information

Settings confirming the flag is set:

~/.claude/settings.json (relevant excerpt):

{
  "env": {
    "CLAUDE_CODE_EXPERIMENTAL_AGENT_TEAMS": "1"
  },
  "teammateMode": "auto"
}

Shell environment also confirms: CLAUDE_CODE_EXPERIMENTAL_AGENT_TEAMS=1

Related: #23415 (Agent Teams teammate inbox polling issue — different bug, but same feature area)

View original on GitHub ↗

18 Comments

astrosteveo · 5 months ago

I am having the same issue. I have tried both selecting Default (recommended), which references Opus 4.6 - Most capable for complex work, as well as directly specifying /model claude-opus-4-6. I've even tried setting the env variable in both my shell environment (my zsh config) as well as in my ~/.claude/settings.json config file and like @dhofheinz I have also verified the env variable is available in the environment, which it results in returning 1. Either way, Claude gave me pretty much an identical answer to what @dhofheinz is experiencing.

I also tried completely uninstalling Claude Code, along with all the cache, configs, ~/.claude directory, ~/.claude.json, and ~/.cache/claude.

Rocky Linux 9.7 (Blue Onyx), kitty 0.45.0, Claude Code 2.1.32, native binary (not npm version).

bryan-cox · 5 months ago

I too am having this issue.

MacOS, iTerm2, tmux, Claude Code v2.1.32

vinnymeller · 5 months ago

did essentially all the same things as @astrosteveo and have same exact issue, tried on both nixos & macos

riptscripts · 5 months ago

Experiencing this too

ansjcy · 5 months ago

Facing the same issue, could you also provide any info in the documentation (https://code.claude.com/docs/en/agent-teams), what type of plan do we need for this feature?

fbbp · 5 months ago

After some trial and error, I managed to get it working by disabling CLAUDE_CODE_DISABLE_NONESSENTIAL_TRAFFIC=1. I found this tip on social media, and it fixed the issue in my environment. While this was my specific case, adjusting data-sharing settings might be the key to getting it running for others as well.

vinnymeller · 5 months ago

@fbbp +1 worked for me, thank you. super strange that it would be tied to that setting & undocumented.

dhofheinz · 5 months ago

Thanks @fbbp — your suggestion pointed me in the right direction. I didn't have CLAUDE_CODE_DISABLE_NONESSENTIAL_TRAFFIC=1 set, but I did have DISABLE_TELEMETRY enabled in my settings.json. Removing that got Agent Teams working for me.

So it looks like there are at least two telemetry/data-sharing related settings that silently gate this feature:

  • CLAUDE_CODE_DISABLE_NONESSENTIAL_TRAFFIC=1 (fbbp's fix)
  • DISABLE_TELEMETRY=1 (my fix)

Neither of these is documented as having any relationship to Agent Teams. The feature just silently doesn't load and the system prompt injects a "not available on this plan" message — which is misleading since it's not a plan issue at all.

riptscripts · 5 months ago

Removing both CLAUDE_CODE_DISABLE_NONESSENTIAL_TRAFFIC and CLAUDE_CODE_DISABLE_TELEMETRY didn't fix it for me... odd

dhofheinz · 5 months ago

@riptscripts Do you have DISABLE_ERROR_REPORTING enabled? Seems like there may be multiple telemetry-adjacent settings that gate this feature.

stephenshankimprint · 5 months ago

I wonder if CLAUDE_CODE_USE_BEDROCK=1 is also interacting with this, because I don't have any of those telemetry adjacent configurations enabled, but I'm still getting the same "Not available on your plan" message.

emmahyde · 5 months ago

I can confirm this is occurring on Bedrock us.anthropic.claude-opus-4-6-v1 and us.anthropic.claude-opus-4-6-v1[1m]

szwang · 5 months ago

Thanks so much for reporting! So sorry about this. We are working on a fix and I will update here when it's released.

emmahyde · 5 months ago

Thanks for the quick response and action @szwang! this is huge for our team.

Trevor-K-Smith · 5 months ago

@szwang THANKS FOR SUCH A SPEEDY PATCH!!!

dhofheinz · 5 months ago

Thanks @szwang for the quick response and fix — really appreciate it!

szwang · 5 months ago

Aww of course! Thanks so much for your understanding. We're really excited for you all to try this out (bear in mind it's quite token intensive!) and look forward to your feedback. More improvements soon 🤗

github-actions[bot] · 5 months ago

This issue has been automatically locked since it was closed and has not had any activity for 7 days. If you're experiencing a similar issue, please file a new issue and reference this one if it's relevant.