Claude-Code

Claude Code subagents can now spawn subagents

2.1.219 raised the default nested subagent spawn depth from 1 to 3. Agents spawning agents spawning agents, on by default, with CLAUDE_CODE_MAX_SUBAGENT_SPAWN_DEPTH=1 to put it back.

I can see how companies would end up with million dollar token bills.

The Claude Code system prompt got 80% shorter

Simon Willison interviewed Cat Wu and Thariq Shihipar from the Claude Code team.

Adding examples to the system prompt is no longer best practice for Opus 4.8 or Fable 5, and taking them out cut the Claude Code system prompt by 80%. Older models still get the long version. Throws a bunch of past guidance out the window.

Reddit vs Claude Code

There have been a lot of posts in the r/ClaudeCode subreddit about essentially two things:

• A large reduction in the quality of work Claude Code does.
• Running out of tokens quickly, even for the $200/month Pro users.

I use Claude Code every day, and have been for months. And there’s the thing: I haven’t seen either of these problems, at all.

There are a few possible explanations.

One is that I’m not using it as intensely or for the kinds of work that are showing these problems. I don’t buy that, because I know my own usage isn’t “cutting edge” but it’s also not nothing. I think I do more with it than most people do.