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Claude Code Issues / #41778

[BUG] MCP tools not available on first turn in Remote Trigger / Scheduled sessions

Status Closed — not planned
Reported on v2.1.89
Maintainer reply ✓ Yes — ashwin-ant
Workaround ✓ Mentioned in thread ↓
Activity 4 comments · opened Apr 1, 2026 · closed Apr 10, 2026
💡 Likely answer: A maintainer (ashwin-ant, collaborator) responded on this thread — see the highlighted reply below.

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?

When a Claude Code session is initiated via a Remote Trigger (scheduled run), MCP server tools are not loaded/available on the first conversation turn. The deferred tool list for connected MCP servers (e.g., Gmail) does not appear in the system reminder until after the first user message exchange.

Steps to Reproduce:

Configure an MCP server (e.g., Gmail) in Claude Code settings
Create a Remote Trigger / scheduled session that uses prompts requiring MCP tools
Observe the first turn of the session — MCP tools are missing from the deferred tool list
Expected Behavior:

All configured MCP tools should be available from the very first turn of the session, including sessions initiated via Remote Triggers.

Actual Behavior:

MCP tools are absent on the first turn. They only become available after one round of conversation (i.e., after the second user message). This means any scheduled/automated prompt that depends on MCP tools will fail on its first attempt.

Impact:

This effectively breaks any Remote Trigger automation that relies on MCP tools, since scheduled prompts typically run in a single turn and cannot self-retry.

Environment:

Claude Code (Web / Remote Trigger)
Affected MCP: Gmail (likely affects all MCP servers)

What Should Happen?

All configured MCP tools should be available from the very first turn of the session, including sessions initiated via Remote Triggers.

Error Messages/Logs

Steps to Reproduce

Steps to Reproduce:

Configure an MCP server (e.g., Gmail) in Claude Code settings
Create a Remote Trigger / scheduled session that uses prompts requiring MCP tools
Observe the first turn of the session — MCP tools are missing from the deferred tool list
Expected Behavior:

All configured MCP tools should be available from the very first turn of the session, including sessions initiated via Remote Triggers.

Claude Model

Opus

Is this a regression?

Yes, this worked in a previous version

Last Working Version

_No response_

Claude Code Version

2.1.89

Platform

Anthropic API

Operating System

macOS

Terminal/Shell

Terminal.app (macOS)

Additional Information

_No response_

View original on GitHub ↗

4 Comments

aidanmoonama · 6 months ago

Workaround: Use Agent subagents to call MCP tools

The main session can't access MCP connector tools, but spawned Agent subagents can call them directly by name. See #43320 for full details and prompt template.

Main Session (no MCP access)
  ├── spawn Agent → mcp__Slack__slack_send_message         ✅
  ├── spawn Agent → mcp__Notion__API-query-data-source     ✅
  ├── spawn Agent → mcp__Google-Calendar__gcal_list_events  ✅
  ├── (collect all results)
  └── spawn Agent → mcp__Slack__slack_send_message          ✅

Add this to your trigger prompt:

MCP tools will NEVER appear in ToolSearch. Do NOT use ToolSearch,
sleep/retry, or direct MCP calls from the main session.
The ONLY way to call MCP tools is via Agent subagents.

Burns extra tokens but works consistently. Tested with Slack, Notion, Google Calendar, Gmail, and Granola connectors.

DanRxn · 6 months ago

Controlled experiments confirming this + additional workaround

Ran 15 sessions under controlled conditions (Claude Desktop 1.1348.0, macOS, Opus) to characterize this. Two user-configured MCP servers tested: Trello (stdio transport via wrapper script) and Craft (HTTP transport via https://mcp.craft.do/my/mcp).

What doesn't work:

  • Retrying ToolSearch for 1 minute (5-6 attempts): never found
  • Retrying ToolSearch for 5 minutes (19 attempts per session, 3 sessions): never found on turn 1, regardless of wait time
  • Project-level .mcp.json with enableAllProjectMcpServers: true: no change
  • ToolSearch as the very first action on turn 1: not found

What does work:

  • ToolSearch on turn 2 — MCP tools consistently appear after the first turn completes. Server uptime at discovery (~24s) suggests the server starts with the session but isn't indexed until the system-reminder refreshes between turns. This is the cheapest workaround for multi-turn sessions (Dispatch chat, interactive Desktop).
  • Subagent delegation (as @aidanmoonama described) — confirmed working. Subagents get a fresh system-reminder that includes the MCP tools. This is the only option for single-turn sessions (scheduled tasks, Remote Triggers).

Key finding: This is turn-based, not time-based. 5 minutes of retries on turn 1 never works. But turn 2 works immediately, even if turn 1 was only seconds earlier. Both stdio and HTTP transport MCP servers are affected identically.

Implementing subagent delegation in our scheduled task prompts now — will edit this comment if it proves unreliable in practice.

ashwin-ant collaborator · 6 months ago

Duplicate of #35899

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.

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