[Bug] Agent Team teammates don't inherit permissions.allow from global settings.json
Bug Description
Title: Agent Teams teammates do not inherit permissions.allow from global settings.json
Environment:
- Claude Code v2.1.112
- Platform: macOS (darwin 24.6.0)
- CLAUDE_CODE_EXPERIMENTAL_AGENT_TEAMS=1
Expected behavior:
Per docs ("Teammates start with the lead's permission settings"), teammates spawned in an Agent Team should inherit permissions.allow
rules from ~/.claude/settings.json.
Actual behavior:
Teammates block on Waiting for team lead approval for tool calls that are explicitly whitelisted in the global settings.json.
Example: teammates try to run Bash(ls /tmp/fs-TICKET-/) and hang even though Bash(ls:) is in the global allow list.
The team lead (orchestrator) never surfaces these approval requests in its UI — it reports teammates as "working", so there's no way
to manually approve either. The result is a deadlock: teammates wait forever, lead is unaware.
Steps to reproduce:
- Add "Bash(ls:*)" to permissions.allow in ~/.claude/settings.json.
- Run a slash command that spawns an Agent Team with 2–3 teammates (each in their own worktree under /tmp/).
- Teammates attempt a trivial ls <worktree> as their first tool call.
- All teammates show Waiting for team lead approval. Lead shows them as "working". No approval UI surfaces.
Workarounds attempted:
- Blanket Bash(ls:), Bash(cat:), Bash(grep:*), etc. in global settings.json — does not propagate to teammates.
- Removing teammateMode: "tmux" from settings.json — no change.
- The only thing that unblocks teammates is spawning them with mode: "bypassPermissions", which users reasonably want to avoid for
safety reasons.
Impact:
Feature is effectively unusable without bypassPermissions. There's no documented middle ground between "hangs forever" and "full
bypass". A fix would be either: (a) actually inherit the lead's allow rules (as docs claim), or (b) add a visible UI on the lead to
see/approve teammate requests.
Environment Info
- Platform: darwin
- Terminal: iTerm.app
- Version: 2.1.112
- Feedback ID: 9f48fc27-f3ef-4ef8-a9fd-46f07c317a29
Errors
[{"error":"Error: NON-FATAL: Lock acquisition failed for /Users/mmendez/.local/share/claude/versions/2.1.112 (expected in multi-process scenarios)\n at Od_ (/$bunfs/root/src/entrypoints/cli.js:2748:2177)\n at Ke6 (/$bunfs/root/src/entrypoints/cli.js:2748:1257)\n at processTicksAndRejections (native:7:39)","timestamp":"2026-04-17T12:53:17.988Z"}]This issue has 3 comments on GitHub. Read the full discussion on GitHub ↗