Claude Code settings

Claude Code offers a variety of settings to configure its behavior to meet your needs. You can configure Claude Code by running claude config in your terminal, or the /config command when using the interactive REPL.

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Configuration hierarchy

The new settings.json file is our official mechanism for configuring Claude Code through hierarchical settings.

User settings are defined in ~/.claude/settings.json and apply to all projects.

Project settings are saved in your project directory under .claude/settings.json for shared settings, and .claude/settings.local.json for local project settings. Claude Code will configure git to ignore .claude/settings.local.json when it is created.

For enterprise deployments of Claude Code, we also support enterprise managed policy settings. These take precedence over user and project settings. System administrators can deploy policies to /Library/Application Support/ClaudeCode/policies.json on macOS and /etc/claude-code/policies.json on Linux and Windows via WSL.

{
  "permissions": {
    "allow": [
      "Bash(npm run lint)",
      "Bash(npm run test:*)",
      "Read(~/.zshrc)"
    ],
    "deny": [
      "Bash(curl:*)"
    ]
  },
  "env": {
    "CLAUDE_CODE_ENABLE_TELEMETRY": "1",
    "OTEL_METRICS_EXPORTER": "otlp"
  }
}

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Settings precedence

Settings are applied in order of precedence, with later sources overriding previous sources:

• User settings
• Shared project settings
• Local project settings
• Command line arguments
• Enterprise policies

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Configuration options

Claude Code supports global and project-level configuration.

To manage your configurations, use the following commands:

• List settings: claude config list
• See a setting: claude config get <key>
• Change a setting: claude config set <key> <value>
• Push to a setting (for lists): claude config add <key> <value>
• Remove from a setting (for lists): claude config remove <key> <value>

By default config changes your project configuration. To manage your global configuration, use the --global (or -g) flag.

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Global configuration

To set a global configuration, use claude config set -g <key> <value>:

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Project configuration

Manage project configuration with claude config set <key> <value> (without the -g flag):

For example:

# Let npm test to run without approval
claude config add allowedTools "Bash(npm test)"

# Let npm test and any of its sub-commands to run without approval
claude config add allowedTools "Bash(npm test:*)"

# Instruct Claude to ignore node_modules
claude config add ignorePatterns node_modules
claude config add ignorePatterns "node_modules/**"

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Permissions

You can manage Claude Code’s tool permissions with /allowed-tools. This UI lists all permission rules and the settings.json file they are sourced from.

• Allow rules will allow Claude Code to use the specified tool without further manual approval.
• Deny rules will prevent Claude Code from using the specified tool. Deny rules take precedence over allow rules.

Permission rules use the format: Tool(optional-specifier).

For example, adding WebFetch to the list of allow rules would allow any use of the web fetch tool without requiring user approval. See the list of tools available to Claude (use the name in parentheses when provided.)

Some tools use the optional specifier for more fine-grained permission controls. For example, an allow rule with WebFetch(domain:example.com) would allow fetches to example.com but not other URLs.

Bash rules can be exact matches like Bash(npm run build), or prefix matches when they end with :* like Bash(npm run test:*)

Read() and Edit() rules follow the gitignore specification. Patterns are resolved relative to the directory containing .claude/settings.json. To reference an absolute path, use //. For a path relative to your home directory, use ~/. For example Read(//tmp/build_cache) or Edit(~/.zshrc). Claude will also make a best-effort attempt to apply Read and Edit rules to other file-related tools like Grep, Glob, and LS.

MCP tool names follow the format: mcp__server_name__tool_name where:

• server_name is the name of the MCP server as configured in Claude Code
• tool_name is the specific tool provided by that server

More examples:

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Auto-updater permission options

When Claude Code detects that it doesn’t have sufficient permissions to write to your global npm prefix directory (required for automatic updates), you’ll see a warning that points to this documentation page. For detailed solutions to auto-updater issues, see the troubleshooting guide.

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Recommended: Create a new user-writable npm prefix

# First, save a list of your existing global packages for later migration
npm list -g --depth=0 > ~/npm-global-packages.txt

# Create a directory for your global packages
mkdir -p ~/.npm-global

# Configure npm to use the new directory path
npm config set prefix ~/.npm-global

# Note: Replace ~/.bashrc with ~/.zshrc, ~/.profile, or other appropriate file for your shell
echo 'export PATH=~/.npm-global/bin:$PATH' >> ~/.bashrc

# Apply the new PATH setting
source ~/.bashrc

# Now reinstall Claude Code in the new location
npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code

# Optional: Reinstall your previous global packages in the new location
# Look at ~/npm-global-packages.txt and install packages you want to keep
# npm install -g package1 package2 package3...

Why we recommend this option:

• Avoids modifying system directory permissions
• Creates a clean, dedicated location for your global npm packages
• Follows security best practices

Since Claude Code is actively developing, we recommend setting up auto-updates using the recommended option above.

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Disabling the auto-updater

If you prefer to disable the auto-updater instead of fixing permissions, you can use:

claude config set -g autoUpdaterStatus disabled

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Optimize your terminal setup

Claude Code works best when your terminal is properly configured. Follow these guidelines to optimize your experience.

Supported shells:

• Bash
• Zsh
• Fish

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Themes and appearance

Claude cannot control the theme of your terminal. That’s handled by your terminal application. You can match Claude Code’s theme to your terminal during onboarding or any time via the /config command

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Line breaks

You have several options for entering linebreaks into Claude Code:

• Quick escape: Type \ followed by Enter to create a newline
• Keyboard shortcut: Press Option+Enter (Meta+Enter) with proper configuration

To set up Option+Enter in your terminal:

For Mac Terminal.app:

1. Open Settings → Profiles → Keyboard
2. Check “Use Option as Meta Key”

For iTerm2 and VSCode terminal:

1. Open Settings → Profiles → Keys
2. Under General, set Left/Right Option key to “Esc+”

Tip for iTerm2 and VSCode users: Run /terminal-setup within Claude Code to automatically configure Shift+Enter as a more intuitive alternative.

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Notification setup

Never miss when Claude completes a task with proper notification configuration:

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Terminal bell notifications

Enable sound alerts when tasks complete:

claude config set --global preferredNotifChannel terminal_bell

For macOS users: Don’t forget to enable notification permissions in System Settings → Notifications → [Your Terminal App].

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iTerm 2 system notifications

For iTerm 2 alerts when tasks complete:

1. Open iTerm 2 Preferences
2. Navigate to Profiles → Terminal
3. Enable “Silence bell” and “Send notification when idle”
4. Set your preferred notification delay

Note that these notifications are specific to iTerm 2 and not available in the default macOS Terminal.

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Handling large inputs

When working with extensive code or long instructions:

• Avoid direct pasting: Claude Code may struggle with very long pasted content
• Use file-based workflows: Write content to a file and ask Claude to read it
• Be aware of VS Code limitations: The VS Code terminal is particularly prone to truncating long pastes

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Vim Mode

Claude Code supports a subset of Vim keybindings that can be enabled with /vim or configured via /config.

The supported subset includes:

• Mode switching: Esc (to NORMAL), i/I, a/A, o/O (to INSERT)
• Navigation: h/j/k/l, w/e/b, 0/$/^, gg/G
• Editing: x, dw/de/db/dd/D, cw/ce/cb/cc/C, . (repeat)

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Environment variables

Claude Code supports the following environment variables to control its behavior: