Claude Code Drops Its 200-Subagent Session Cap

Claude Code removed its 200-subagent-per-session cap in the August 17 update, per its changelog. Long-running orchestration sessions that spawn many subagents no longer hit a hard refusal mid-run. Concurrency limits and the five-level depth cap still apply, so unlimited fan-out isn't actually possible.

Worktree isolation now extends to Bash commands and git redirects. No command can reach back into the main checkout, and that protection covers every session type plus that session's own subagents. A /fork session gets its own worktree instead of sharing one with its parent.

Two more fixes tighten permission checks. A Bash command can no longer hide part of itself from permission review by padding it with tabs or invisible Unicode characters. PreToolUse auto-allow hooks no longer bypass tool restrictions inside internal side tasks like summaries and compaction.

That last fix matters more than the cap removal. An auto-allow hook skipping restrictions during compaction or a summary step was a real privilege-escalation path. It sat open until this release closed it, quietly. Anyone running Claude Code with custom PreToolUse hooks can check whether they relied on that gap, intentionally or not.

The changelog is dated August 17, 2026, and covers Claude Code's week 32 release.