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Public story · 2026-07-17 · high
The default is 200 search calls and 200 subagent spawns per session, adjustable through an environment variable when you hit it.
Why now: The caps landed in the July 17 changelog alongside a batch of other 2.1.212 fixes.
Claude Code 2.1.212 caps how many WebSearch calls and subagent spawns a single session can make, per the July 17 changelog. Anyone running Claude Code unattended now hits a real ceiling: 200 search calls or 200 subagent spawns per session by default. No more open-ended token bill.
The WebSearch limit is tunable through CLAUDE_CODE_MAX_WEB_SEARCHES_PER_SESSION. The subagent-spawn limit uses the same default of 200 and is tunable through CLAUDE_CODE_MAX_SUBAGENTS_PER_SESSION.
Running /clear resets the subagent-spawn budget, per the changelog. The changelog doesn't say whether /clear also resets the search cap.
The same release auto-backgrounds any MCP tool call that runs past two minutes, so a slow tool can't freeze the session.
A related fix in the same 2.1.212 batch closes a plan-mode bug that let file-modifying bash commands run without a permission prompt, per the changelog.
Anyone scheduling a long, unattended multi-agent run should check both env vars before kicking it off, not after hitting the wall.
Each link below shares sources, entities, or timing with this story.
v2.1.211 stops Bedrock, Vertex, Mantle, and Foundry from rebilling cached system context as full-price input tokens.
The August 20 update also lets plugin marketplaces mint short-lived headers instead of storing static tokens in config.
Below that version, file-modifying Bash commands could run during plan mode without waiting for approval, per the changelog.
A hook could exit code 2, report failure, and still let the tool run if its JSON failed schema validation, per Claude Code's changelog.
Your own default mode persists unless you accept a one-time switch prompt, and scripts can now enable it directly in settings.json.
Auto mode also becomes the default permission setting for new accounts starting August 14, and its checks stop counting against usage limits.
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