Multi-agent flows don't inherit permission approvals, causing repetitive prompts
Resolved 💬 6 comments Opened Jul 1, 2025 by mkreyman Closed Jan 13, 2026
When using multi-agent orchestration (via the Task tool), spawned agents don't inherit the parent agent's runtime approvals or respect pre-approved patterns in settings.local.json consistently. This results in getting bombarded with permission prompts for commands that have already been approved.
Steps to Reproduce
- Have extensive pre-approvals in
.claude/settings.local.jsonincluding patterns like"Bash(find:*)","Bash(grep:*)", etc. - Run a multi-agent flow that spawns specialized agents
- Watch as each spawned agent asks for permission to run commands like:
``bash``
find ~/workspace/my_project/tests -name "*.test.ts" -type f < /dev/null | xargs grep -L "afterAll\|afterEach" | head -10
Expected Behavior
- Spawned agents should inherit parent's runtime approvals
- Pre-approved patterns in settings.local.json should be respected by all agents
- Complex piped commands that match component patterns should be auto-approved
Current Behavior
- Each spawned agent starts with fresh approval state
- Users get prompted repeatedly for the same types of commands
- Workflow is significantly disrupted by constant approval requests
Suggested Solutions
- Add a flag to Task tool to inherit parent approvals
- Improve pattern matching for complex piped commands
- Add a "trust mode" for multi-agent workflows in secure environments
- Allow wildcard approval patterns like
"Bash(*)"for trusted workspaces
Impact
This makes multi-agent workflows extremely frustrating to use, defeating much of their productivity benefit.
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