Workflow tool triggers on any message mentioning "workflow" — trigger is too broad

Open 💬 3 comments Opened Jun 1, 2026 by sheldon

Summary

The Workflow tool is triggered whenever a user message contains the word "workflow" or "workflows", even when the user has no intent to use multi-agent workflow orchestration. This causes Claude to be forced into expensive multi-agent mode for completely unrelated requests.

Steps to Reproduce

  1. In Claude Code, send any message that mentions "workflow" in a non-orchestration context, e.g.:
  • "make a bug report that workflows are triggering when not wanted"
  • "check the GitHub Actions workflow logs"
  • "there's a bug with the workflow in this repo"
  1. Claude receives a system reminder: "The user included the keyword 'workflow' or 'workflows', which means you should use the Workflow tool to fulfill their request."
  2. Claude is forced to use multi-agent Workflow orchestration even though the user never requested it.

Expected Behavior

The Workflow tool trigger should activate only on explicit opt-in such as:

  • Asking Claude to "run a workflow"
  • Using a dedicated slash command like /workflow
  • Phrasing that directly requests multi-agent orchestration

Merely mentioning the word "workflow" in any other context (bug reports, CI/CD references, discussing workflows as a concept) should not trigger this behavior.

Actual Behavior

Any message containing "workflow" or "workflows" triggers mandatory Workflow tool use, forcing Claude into a multi-agent execution path the user did not request. The system reminder language ("you MUST use the Workflow tool") means Claude has no way to override this even when it understands the user's intent is different.

Impact

  • Unexpected token consumption from unnecessary multi-agent orchestration
  • Confusing UX: users discussing GitHub Actions workflows, workflow bugs, or any other "workflow"-related topic are silently redirected into a different execution mode
  • Users cannot work around this without avoiding the word entirely

Suggested Fix

Replace the keyword-match trigger with intent-based detection, or require an explicit opt-in mechanism (slash command, specific phrase like "use workflow orchestration") rather than a broad keyword match.

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