[BUG] Agent tool not available to sub-agents — prevents orchestrator pattern

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?

Sub-agents spawned via the Agent tool do not receive the Agent tool in their own toolset, even when their agent type specifies "All tools". This prevents the orchestrator pattern where a
sub-agent spawns and coordinates other agents.

What Should Happen?

Expected: A sub-agent spawned via Agent(name="orchestrator", subagent_type="custom-agent") should have access to the Agent tool so it can spawn its own sub-agents.

Actual: Sub-agents get Bash, Read, Write, Edit, Glob, Grep, SendMessage, TeamCreate, TaskCreate, MCP tools — but NOT Agent. They cannot spawn anything.

Three patterns tested, all fail:

┌──────────────────────────────────────┬────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┬──────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Spawn Method │ Has Agent tool? │ Result │
├──────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Foreground teammate (team_name set) │ No │ "Teammates cannot spawn other teammates" │
├──────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Foreground inline (no team_name) │ No │ Cannot call Agent() │
├──────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Background (run_in_background: true) │ No Agent, no TeamCreate, no SendMessage, no Task tools │ No orchestration tools at all │
└──────────────────────────────────────┴────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┴──────────────────────────────────────────┘

Environment: Claude Code v2.1.89, macOS, Opus 4.6

---

Error Messages/Logs

Steps to Reproduce

Repro:

1. Enable "CLAUDE_CODE_EXPERIMENTAL_AGENT_TEAMS": "1" and "teammateMode": "tmux"
2. Spawn: Agent(name="test", subagent_type="general-purpose", prompt="List all your available tools")
3. Sub-agent reports no Agent tool

Impact: Blocks "agent of agents" orchestrator pattern. The only entity that can call Agent() is the top-level REPL.

Claude Model

Opus

Is this a regression?

I don't know

Last Working Version

_No response_

Claude Code Version

2.1.89

Platform

Other

Operating System

macOS

Terminal/Shell

iTerm2

Additional Information

_No response_