Beta features and research previews in Claude Code

Claude Code ships new capabilities under three labels before they settle: research preview (agent view, fast mode, routines, channels), public beta (Projects, self-hosted environments) and experimental (agent teams, agent hooks). Each can change or disappear between releases, so trial it on a throwaway branch with a pass/fail check, and keep the switch to turn it off.

A teammate posts that agent teams made their reviews faster, you export one environment variable, and the next morning your usual subagents launch as teammates, your token use has jumped and nobody can say whether the reviews got better. This page is for developers who want to try Claude Code’s newest features without breaking a working setup, and for tech leads who decide which of them the team is allowed to use.

Checked against Claude Code 2.1.283 on 2026-09-26

Preview status changes often. Every label, command and setting here was checked on 2026-09-26 against the installed CLI (claude --help, v2.1.283 on the latest channel) and the vendor’s feature pages on code.claude.com. The stable channel was on v2.1.274 that day. Run claude --version before you rely on a detail, and read the Claude Code changelog guide for what moved since.

What you get from this preview-features reference

• A dated table of every Claude Code feature labelled research preview, beta or experimental, with the exact switch that turns it on and off.
• A six-step trial procedure that tells you whether a preview helps, using the gates you already trust instead of a gut feeling.
• Three copy-paste prompts: a scoped agent-team trial, a background dispatch you can check later, and a bug report Claude drafts for you.
• The managed settings a tech lead uses to allow, limit or block previews for a whole team.
• The failure modes each preview has today, and how to recover from them.

What do “research preview”, “beta” and “experimental” mean in Claude Code?

Anthropic uses the three labels differently, and the difference tells you how much to rely on the feature.

Label	What the vendor promises	How you usually get it	Treat it as
Research preview	“The feature, pricing, and availability may change based on feedback” (fast mode page); interfaces and shortcuts may change (agent view page)	On by default or one command away, sometimes plan-gated	Usable for real work, but re-check it after every update
Public beta	Rolling out gradually to named plans	Appears on eligible accounts; no local switch	Available to some of your team and not others, so do not build a shared process on it yet
Experimental	“Behavior and configuration may change” (hooks page); agent teams are “experimental and disabled by default”	An explicit opt-in: an environment variable, a setting or a command	A trial only, on work where a failure costs you nothing

Labels change between releases, and the feature’s own reference page is where you see it. For example, /goal (added in v2.1.139) carries no preview label on its reference page, while agent view, added in the same release, still does (both checked 2026-09-26).

Which Claude Code features are in preview on 2026-09-26?

The table lists each feature, its label, how you turn it on and off, and where it is available. Prices live on one page only, the model comparison hub, so they are not repeated here.

Feature	Label	Turn on	Turn off or restrict	Availability
Agent view (claude agents, claude --bg)	Research preview since v2.1.139	Run claude agents, or start a session with claude --bg "TASK"	"disableAgentView": true in settings, or CLAUDE_CODE_DISABLE_AGENT_VIEW=1; enforceable in managed settings	Sessions run on your machine; they survive sleep but stop on shutdown
Agent teams	Experimental, off by default	CLAUDE_CODE_EXPERIMENTAL_AGENT_TEAMS=1 in your shell or in the env block of a settings file	Set the variable to 0; a managed value overrides every other source	Interactive sessions only: claude -p and the Claude Agent SDK never spawn teammates
Fast mode	Research preview	/fast, or "fastMode": true in user settings	/fast again; managed "fastMode": false or "fastModePerSessionOptIn": true	Opus 5.5, Opus 5 and Opus 4.8 only (Opus 5.5 from v2.1.280, the latest channel). Subscriptions pay through usage credits, and Team and Enterprise need an Owner to enable it. Not on Amazon Bedrock, Google Cloud’s Agent Platform, Microsoft Foundry or Claude Platform on AWS
Routines (/schedule)	Research preview	/schedule in a session	Delete the routine; Team and Enterprise Owners: the Routines toggle in admin settings	Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise; needs a claude.ai sign-in; one-hour minimum interval
Channels	Research preview since v2.1.80	claude --channels plugin:telegram@claude-plugins-official (Telegram, Discord and iMessage plugins ship in the preview; the flag is not listed in claude --help on v2.1.283, but it works)	Start without --channels; Team and Enterprise must enable channels explicitly	claude.ai sign-in or Console API key only; the prebuilt plugins need Bun; not on Bedrock, Google Cloud’s Agent Platform or Foundry
Managed Code Review	Research preview	An admin enables it for the organisation	Admin setting	Team and Enterprise; not available under zero data retention
/design bundled skill	Research preview	/design in a session	Do not invoke it	Bundled with the CLI
Computer use (CLI on macOS; Desktop on macOS and Windows)	Research preview	CLI: /mcp, select the built-in computer-use server, choose Enable (saved per project). Desktop: the toggle in Settings > General	CLI: disable computer-use in /mcp. Desktop: the same toggle	Pro and Max with a claude.ai sign-in; not Team or Enterprise; not with claude -p; not on Bedrock, Google Cloud’s Agent Platform or Foundry
Advisor tool	Experimental	/advisor, or the advisorModel setting	/advisor off; CLAUDE_CODE_DISABLE_ADVISOR_TOOL=1 disables it entirely	Anthropic first-party only (subscriptions and API keys); not on Bedrock, Claude Platform on AWS, Google Cloud’s Agent Platform or Foundry
Agent hooks ("type": "agent")	Experimental	A hook entry with the agent handler type	Remove the entry	Everywhere hooks run
Projects	Public beta	Rolls out to eligible accounts	—	Pro and Max; not yet Team or Enterprise
Self-hosted environments	Public beta since v2.1.224	claude --environment ENVIRONMENT_ID starts a cloud session on your runner	Start sessions without --environment	Team and Enterprise
Claude Desktop on Linux	Beta	Install the Linux build	—	Linux (apt); computer use is not in the Linux build yet

Replace TASK and ENVIRONMENT_ID with your own values. For agent view, background sessions and /goal, the canonical guides are agent view and goal workflows. This page only covers their preview status.

Which release channel should you run previews on?

Previews arrive on the latest channel first. The stable channel is “typically about a week behind” and skips releases with major regressions, so a preview you read about today may not exist on a stable install yet. On 2026-09-26, latest was v2.1.283 and stable was v2.1.274.

# In a terminal: which version and channel are you on?
claude --version
claude doctor

# Move a native install to the stable channel (or back with "latest")
claude install stable

To pin the channel in configuration, set autoUpdatesChannel in ~/.claude/settings.json. Set minimumVersion to the version you run now, so that a switch to stable does not downgrade you; updates then refuse anything below it. Switching the channel through /config and choosing to stay on your current version sets this for you.

{
  "autoUpdatesChannel": "stable",
  "minimumVersion": "2.1.283"
}

A reasonable split for a team: most engineers stay on stable, and one or two volunteers run latest and report which previews are worth adopting. Full upgrade and rollback steps are in upgrade procedures.

How do you trial a preview feature without breaking your setup?

Treat each preview as an experiment with a written pass condition. The steps below give you an answer you can defend to your team.

1. Confirm the feature exists on your build. Run claude --version and compare it with the version in the table above. If you are on stable, the feature may still be missing.

2. Isolate the trial in a worktree. Start the session with claude --worktree preview-trial, so every edit lands in a separate checkout of the repository and your working copy stays clean.

3. Scope the opt-in to one project. Put experimental switches in .claude/settings.local.json, the per-project file that Claude Code keeps out of git when it creates it (add it to .gitignore if you create it by hand), rather than in ~/.claude/settings.json:

   {
     "env": {
       "CLAUDE_CODE_EXPERIMENTAL_AGENT_TEAMS": "1"
     }
   }

4. Write the pass condition before you start. Name a task you have already done without the preview, the gates it must pass (tests, type check, lint, /code-review) and a spend ceiling you read from /usage. Without a baseline you are measuring enthusiasm, not the feature.

5. Run the same task twice and compare. Once with the preview, once without. Record wall-clock time, the usage delta from /usage, and whether the result passed the same gates on the first try.

6. Decide, then clean up. Adopt, wait for the next release, or reject. Remove the opt-in from .claude/settings.local.json either way, and delete the worktree once any useful commits are merged.

Copy-paste prompt: a scoped agent-team trial

Create an agent team with three teammates to review the changes on this branch against main. One teammate checks security (auth, input validation, secrets), one checks performance (N+1 queries, unbounded loops, missing indexes), and one checks test coverage for every changed function. Each teammate works independently and reports findings with file and line references. Do not edit any files. When all three finish, merge their findings into one list, remove duplicates, and mark each finding as "verified" only if you can point to the exact line that proves it.

This prompt fits the conditions under which agent teams earn their extra tokens: independent, read-only work with no shared files. Compare its verified findings with what a single /code-review run finds on the same diff. If the team finds nothing extra, the extra token cost bought you nothing.

Copy-paste prompt: a background dispatch you can check later

claude --bg "Reproduce the intermittent 500 on POST /api/checkout. First add a failing integration test that triggers it. Then find the root cause and fix it. Stop only when the new test and the full existing suite pass. Do not modify existing tests. Finish with a one-paragraph root-cause summary and the exact test command you ran."

Run it in a terminal, then open claude agents to watch the row. The prompt ends on a state you can check without reading the diff: a new failing-then-passing test, an untouched existing suite, and a command you can rerun yourself.

How do you know a preview feature is actually helping?

A preview earns adoption only when the same gates pass at an acceptable cost. Keep the gates fixed and let the preview change only speed or cost, so you never have to read every line to judge it.

Preview	What to measure	Pass signal	Who signs off
Agent teams	Verified findings or merged changes per run, against the token delta in /usage	More verified findings than a single session on the same task, at a cost the team accepts	The tech lead, after three comparable runs
Agent view and background sessions	Sessions that end with green tests and an opened PR, against sessions you had to rescue	Most sessions finish without an attach; each PR passes CI unchanged	The developer who owns the PR
Fast mode	Wall-clock time on interactive loops, against usage-credit spend	Shorter iteration on live debugging, with spend inside the budget you set	Whoever holds the usage-credit budget
Routines and channels	Runs that produce a useful result, against runs that produce noise	Each run’s output is something you would otherwise have done by hand	The person who receives the output

CI stays the arbiter: an agent team’s changes or a background session’s PR go through the same checks, reviewers and branch protection as any other change. For the contract every agent PR has to meet, see what an agent’s pull request must prove.

How do tech leads control previews across a team?

Managed settings apply after every other settings source, so they are the one place where a tech lead or platform team can allow, limit or block a preview for everyone. Deliver them with a managed-settings.json file, MDM, or server-managed settings from the claude.ai admin console (Team and Enterprise).

{
  "disableAgentView": false,
  "fastModePerSessionOptIn": true,
  "env": {
    "CLAUDE_CODE_EXPERIMENTAL_AGENT_TEAMS": "0"
  }
}

This example keeps agent view available, makes fast mode an explicit per-session choice in the terminal instead of a saved default, and blocks agent teams until the trial above has an answer. Two previews need an admin action in the product as well: fast mode stays off for Team and Enterprise until an Owner enables it, and channels must be enabled for the organisation. Routines have an organisation switch too: a Team or Enterprise Owner can turn them off for every member with the Routines toggle in the claude.ai admin settings. Rollout mechanics for managed settings are in enterprise integration.

What breaks when you run Claude Code preview features?

• Your subagents start launching as teammates. With agent teams on, any subagent Claude names launches as a teammate, even when you never asked for a team. Remove the CLAUDE_CODE_EXPERIMENTAL_AGENT_TEAMS entry, or set it to "0", in the file that turned teams on. Project and local settings (.claude/settings.json, .claude/settings.local.json) and a --settings payload override ~/.claude/settings.json, so a "0" in your user file does nothing against the step-3 opt-in; a managed value overrides them all.
• Teammates are gone after /resume or /rewind. Neither restores in-process teammates, and the lead may message teammates that no longer exist. Tell the lead to spawn new teammates.
• An agent-team task looks stuck. Teammates sometimes fail to mark a task complete, which blocks the tasks that depend on it. Check whether the work is done, then update the status or ask the lead to nudge the teammate.
• Deleting a background session deleted its work. In agent view, a Claude-created worktree is deleted with the session. Commit or push before you delete a session that edited files.
• Your quota drains several times faster. Every background session and every teammate draws on the same subscription limits, so ten parallel agents use quota roughly ten times as fast as one. Dispatch in small batches and check /usage.
• /fast says “Fast mode requires usage credits” or “disabled by your organization”. Turn on usage credits (/usage-credits opens the page or sends your admin a request), or ask an Owner to enable fast mode or relax the managed setting.
• Fast mode cost more than expected. The first time you enable it in a conversation, you pay the fast-mode uncached input price for the whole context so far. Turn it on at the start of a session, not halfway through.
• A feature from this page is missing. You are probably on the stable channel, on a provider that lacks it (fast mode, channels and the advisor need the Anthropic API or a claude.ai sign-in), or on a plan that does not include it. Check claude --version, your provider, and the availability column above.
• --channels looks like a typo because claude --help does not list it. During the research preview the flag is hidden from help (checked on v2.1.283) and still works. If a channel plugin fails to start instead, check that Bun is on your PATH and that the plugin is installed with /plugin install.
• A preview left Claude Code unable to start cleanly. Run claude --safe-mode to start with every customisation disabled, then remove the offending setting. To go back to an earlier build, run claude install with the last version that worked, for example claude install 2.1.274.

How do you report a problem with a preview?

Previews change because of feedback, so a precise report is the fastest way to get a fix.

1. Run /feedback inside the affected session. It sends feedback to Anthropic or files a bug report from where the problem happened.
2. For a problem you can reproduce, capture a debug log with claude --debug-file /tmp/claude-debug.log and attach the relevant part. Remove secrets and customer data first.
3. Search, then file, issues on the anthropics/claude-code GitHub repository, and include the version, the release channel and the provider.

Copy-paste prompt: let Claude draft the bug report

Draft a bug report for the problem we just hit with a Claude Code preview feature. Include: the output of `claude --version`, the release channel if you can find it in my settings, the provider I am using, the exact feature and command involved, numbered steps to reproduce from a fresh session, what I expected, what actually happened with the exact error text, and whether it happens with `claude --safe-mode`. Leave out file contents, secrets and anything that looks like customer data. Keep it under 250 words.

Paste the draft into /feedback or a GitHub issue after you have read it once. You are the one who confirms the reproduction steps actually reproduce the problem.

Where to go next with Claude Code previews

Agent view and background sessions Dispatch, watch and verify parallel sessions from claude agents.

Goal workflows Keep Claude working until a checkable condition is met.

Upgrade procedures Change release channel, pin a version and roll back safely.

Cost control Budget usage credits before you adopt fast mode or agent teams.

For Codex’s experimental and under-development features, run codex features list (checked on 0.157.1) and see the Codex changelog guide. For permission modes and sandboxing before any unattended run, read permissions, sandboxes and approval modes. For everything else that changed recently, go back to the Claude Code reference overview.