No task-tracking tool available at all on v2.1.218 — Task* tools removed, TodoWrite also absent

No task-tracking tool available at all on v2.1.218 — Task\* tools removed, TodoWrite also absent

Summary

On Claude Code v2.1.218 I have no task/todo tracking tool of any kind:

• TaskCreate / TaskList / TaskUpdate / TaskGet — not present
• TodoWrite — not present either

TodoWrite _is_ present in a third-party extraction of the v2.1.218 system prompt (see Evidence), so this looks like account- or cohort-level gating rather than a version-wide removal. The result is that the model has no structured way to track multi-step work, and periodic "use the task tools" nudges have nothing to call.

This is distinct from #23874 (Task tools disabled in the VSCode extension via an isTTY check) — I reproduced this in two native terminals with a real TTY, and the missing tool here is TodoWrite, not the Task tools.

Environment

| | |
| -------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------- |
| Claude Code | 2.1.218 |
| Platform | macOS, Darwin 24.6.0 (Apple Silicon) |
| Model | Opus 4.8 (1M context), medium effort |
| Plan | Claude Max |
| Terminals tested | Warp, Apple Terminal |
| Install | native CLI (not VSCode extension, not SDK/headless) |
| CLAUDE_CODE_ENABLE_TASKS | unset (also tested =1, no effect) |

Steps to reproduce

1. Launch claude in a native terminal (real TTY).
2. Ask the session to list its available tools, or ask it directly: "do you have the task create and task list tool?"
3. Neither the Task* tools nor TodoWrite appear in the loaded or deferred tool set.

Reproduced in both Warp and Apple Terminal, across restarts.

What I observe

My session's deferred tool list:

EndConversation, EnterPlanMode, EnterWorktree, ExitPlanMode, ExitWorktree,
ListMcpResourcesTool, Monitor, ReadMcpResourceDirTool, ReadMcpResourceTool,
SendMessage, TaskOutput, TaskStop, WebFetch, WebSearch
(+ MCP server tools)

TaskOutput / TaskStop are the background-shell/agent tools — unrelated to task tracking.

Evidence

TodoWrite is expected on 2.1.218

marckrenn/claude-code-changelog extracts system prompts per release. Its cc-prompt.md at tag v2.1.218 shows the deferred tool list containing TodoWrite (and no Task* tracking tools):

AskUserQuestion, CronCreate, CronDelete, CronList, EnterPlanMode, EnterWorktree,
ExitPlanMode, ExitWorktree, Monitor, NotebookEdit, PushNotification, RemoteTrigger,
TaskOutput, TaskStop, TodoWrite, WebFetch, WebSearch

Diffing that against my session, the missing entries are:

| Missing tool | Explained by my config? |
| -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------- |
| AskUserQuestion, CronCreate, CronDelete, CronList, NotebookEdit, PushNotification, RemoteTrigger | Yes — all in my permissions.deny |
| TodoWrite | No — not denied, not disabled, still absent |

Task tools were removed from the tool surface at v2.1.160

system-prompts/tool-description-taskcreate.md
  A  v2.1.116  2026-04-23
  D  v2.1.160  2026-06-02

Task/todo tool-description artifact count per tag: v2.1.150 → 2, then 0 at v2.1.155, .160, .161, .170, .180, .190, .200, .210, .218.

CLAUDE_CODE_ENABLE_TASKS was removed from the CLI env surface at v2.1.212

Commit 3465d1fd8 (2026-07-17), meta/cli-surface.md:

-- `CLAUDE_CODE_ENABLE_TASKS`

So the workaround suggested in #26038 and #23874 (CLAUDE_CODE_ENABLE_TASKS=1 / =false) is a no-op on ≥2.1.212. I confirmed the env var reaches the process (echo $CLAUDE_CODE_ENABLE_TASKS → 1) with no change in tool availability.

Expected behavior

One of:

1. TodoWrite is available on v2.1.218 as the extracted 2.1.218 prompt indicates, or
2. the Task* tools are available, or
3. if neither is intended for this cohort, the periodic task-tool reminders should not fire, and the docs at code.claude.com/docs/en/agent-sdk/todo-tracking should reflect that CLAUDE_CODE_ENABLE_TASKS no longer exists on ≥2.1.212.

Actual behavior

No task-tracking tool of any kind. Multi-step work has to be tracked as free-text in replies.

Ruled out

• Local config — my permissions.deny accounts for 7 of the 8 missing tools; TodoWrite is not among them. Removing the env var and restarting changed nothing.
• Terminal / isTTY (#23874) — reproduced identically in Warp and Apple Terminal, both real TTYs, native CLI rather than the VSCode extension.
• Version too old — 2.1.218 is well past every version in which either tool set was reportedly default.

Related

• #23874 — Task tools disabled in VSCode extension due to isTTY check
• #26038 — Allow disabling periodic task tool reminders without disabling task tools
• #23816 — Task tools referenced in docs but not available at runtime