fastMode setting in settings.json not respected on startup in interactive mode

Description

The fastMode: true setting in ~/.claude/settings.json is not being read or applied on startup in interactive mode. The documentation states that setting "fastMode": true in the user settings file should persist fast mode across sessions, but it does not work.

Steps to reproduce

1. Add "fastMode": true to ~/.claude/settings.json
2. Launch Claude Code interactively (claude)
3. Observe that fast mode is OFF (no ↯ icon in status line)
4. Running /fast manually works fine within the session

Expected behavior

Fast mode should be ON by default when "fastMode": true is set in settings.json, as documented.

Actual behavior

Fast mode is OFF on startup. The debug log (claude -d) shows zero mentions of fast mode — the setting is never read.

Note: In -p (print) mode, the debug log explicitly says: Fast mode unavailable: Fast mode is not available in the Agent SDK — which is expected. But in interactive mode, it's simply silently ignored.

Environment

• Claude Code v2.1.37
• macOS (Darwin 25.2.0, aarch64)
• Claude Max subscription with extra usage enabled
• hasExtraUsageEnabled: true in ~/.claude.json

Workaround

Manually toggle /fast at the start of each session.