Agent Teams: model (inherit) resolution fails during shutdown, potential token drain

Resolved 💬 3 comments Opened Mar 7, 2026 by mderzi Closed Mar 11, 2026

Description

When using Agent Teams with explicitly set model: "sonnet" on all teammates, the shutdown phase produces this error on every teammate:

There's an issue with the selected model (inherit). It may not exist or you may not have access to it. Run /model to pick a different model.

The error appears when teammates try to acknowledge the shutdown request from the team-lead. The work itself completes successfully.

Reproduction

  1. Enable CLAUDE_CODE_EXPERIMENTAL_AGENT_TEAMS
  2. Create a team and spawn teammates with explicit model: "sonnet" (not inherit)
  3. Let all work complete
  4. Team-lead sends shutdown request: "All work is complete. Please shut down."
  5. Each teammate shows the (inherit) model error when trying to accept the shutdown

Concern: Token consumption during failed shutdown

The team-lead polls teammates to confirm shutdown. If the teammate can't respond due to the model resolution failure, the orchestrator may continue polling — consuming tokens after all useful work is done.

Question: Does the shutdown handshake retry on failure? If so, are tokens consumed during those retries?

Environment

  • Claude Code (latest) on Windows 11
  • Teammates spawned with explicit model: "sonnet"
  • The (inherit) value appears to come from the platform's internal shutdown message handler, not from the spawn configuration

Screenshot

<img width="1049" height="256" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/bdaad723-4e2b-4b2d-aea8-b27f46178f81" />

Expected behavior

Teammates should resolve their model correctly during the shutdown acknowledgment, or the shutdown handshake should not require a model call at all.

View original on GitHub ↗

This issue has 3 comments on GitHub. Read the full discussion on GitHub ↗