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Subagents do not inherit CLAUDE.md / AGENTS.md context #623
Description
Subagents dispatched via the Agent tool over ACP do not receive project memory (CLAUDE.md / AGENTS.md). The standalone claude CLI dispatches the same subagent with the context loaded.
Repro
Project root:
CLAUDE.md:
CLAUDE_MD_PROBE_TOKEN = "tangerine-orbit-7421"
AGENTS.md:
AGENTS_MD_PROBE_TOKEN = "saffron-glacier-9038"
Prompt to subagent:
What is the value of
CLAUDE_MD_PROBE_TOKEN, andAGENTS_MD_PROBE_TOKEN? Do NOT run commands or tools. Answer from context only. If absent, say "not in context".
ACP path (broken)
Subagent (haiku, sonnet, opus — same result):
CLAUDE_MD_PROBE_TOKEN: not in context
AGENTS_MD_PROBE_TOKEN: not in context
CLI path (works)
claude --print --dangerously-skip-permissions --model claude-opus-4-7 \
'Use Agent tool, subagent_type=general-purpose, model=haiku. Ask: "What is the value of CLAUDE_MD_PROBE_TOKEN, and AGENTS_MD_PROBE_TOKEN? Do NOT run commands or tools. Answer from context only. If absent, say not in context." Report the answer.'Output:
CLAUDE_MD_PROBE_TOKEN = "tangerine-orbit-7421"
AGENTS_MD_PROBE_TOKEN = "saffron-glacier-9038"
Workaround
Prepend Read CLAUDE.md first. to the subagent prompt:
Read CLAUDE.md first. What is the value of
CLAUDE_MD_PROBE_TOKEN, andAGENTS_MD_PROBE_TOKEN? If absent, say "not in context".
Subagent then resolves both values via the @AGENTS.md import chain. The loader works; only auto-injection on ACP dispatch is missing.
Activity
benbrandt commentedon May 3, 2026
I suspect this is a claude sdk issue as we aren't doing anything special here
unitedideas commentedon May 13, 2026
The repro is useful because it separates two different failures: the loader can resolve the
@AGENTS.mdchain, but the ACP-spawned subagent does not receive the same injected instruction context as the CLI-spawned subagent.One validation row that might make the fix easier to hold: record instruction provenance on each child-agent spawn, not only the final text. For example:
CLAUDE.mddiscovered: yes/no + path.AGENTS.mdimport chain resolved: yes/no + path list.Read CLAUDE.md first.workaround.That keeps this from being treated as a generic
AGENTS.mdparsing bug when the real gap is spawn-time context delivery. We use the same distinction in no-data Claude Code -> Codex migration checks: https://bringyour.ai/codex-import-checklist.jsonbenbrandt commentedon May 21, 2026
I looked at this and for whatever reason the agent sdk isn't propagating this, but it isn't a misconfiguration of the sdk as far as I can tell.