The complete feature surface of 📝Claude Code, organized by 📝Anthropic's own documentation categories and compiled from its published docs. Features with a dedicated memo link to it; the rest are listed by capability. Terms are defined separately in the 📝Claude Code Glossary. For the full collection, browse 🏷️#feature-of-claude-code.

Surfaces

Terminal CLI — the full-featured command line for editing files, running commands, and managing a whole project
VS Code extension — inline diffs, @-mentions, plan review, and conversation history inside the editor
JetBrains plugin — IntelliJ, PyCharm, WebStorm and others, with interactive diffs and selection context sharing
Desktop app — parallel sessions with git isolation, visual diff review, an integrated terminal, and app previews
Claude Code on the web — browser sessions with no local setup, for long tasks and repos you do not have locally
Claude Code on mobile — start, monitor, and steer tasks from the Claude app for iOS and Android
Development containers — run Claude Code inside a dev container for a consistent, isolated environment across a team

Instructions and Memory

📝CLAUDE.md — a markdown file read at the start of every session for standards, architecture, and context
Auto memory — accumulates build commands and debugging learnings across sessions without you writing anything
📝Claude Code Memory — file-based persistence that survives across conversations
The .claude directory — where CLAUDE.md, settings, hooks, skills, commands, subagents, workflows, and rules live
Nested CLAUDE.md files — per-package instructions so a monorepo session stays focused on the code in hand

Extending Claude Code

📝Skill — packaged repeatable workflows a team can share, plus custom commands and bundled skills
📝Slash Command — a typed command invoking a built-in or a skill registered via plugin
📝Hook — shell commands that run automatically on file edits, task completion, or input requests
📝Claude Code Plugin — skills, agents, hooks, and MCP servers bundled as one installable unit
Plugin marketplaces — discover, install, and distribute prebuilt plugins across teams and communities
📝MCP Server — connects to external tools and data over 📝Model Context Protocol (MCP)
Output styles — alternative system prompts that adapt Claude Code for work beyond software engineering
Keyboard shortcuts — customize keybindings through a configuration file

Agents and Orchestration

📝Subagents — specialized agents with isolated context for task-specific work, running in the background by default
Agent view — dispatch and manage many sessions from one screen, showing which ones need your input
Agent teams — coordinate multiple instances with shared tasks, inter-agent messaging, and central management
Dynamic workflows — a rerunnable script orchestrating many subagents for audits, migrations, and cross-checked research
📝Worktree — isolated git worktrees so parallel sessions never collide on the same files
Cross-session messaging — list and message your other sessions on one machine, or across machines via Remote Control

Session Control

📝Plan Mode — propose an approach before any writes, and proceed only on your approval
📝Auto Mode — a classifier handles routine decisions against repos, buckets, and domains your org trusts
📝Permissions — fine-grained allow, ask, and deny rules over tools, commands, and MCP calls
Permission modes — cycle how often Claude asks before editing files or running commands
📝settings.json — global and project-level configuration, plus environment variables
Sessions — name, resume, branch, and switch conversations, including resuming the session that opened a pull request
Checkpointing — track, rewind, and summarize edits and conversation to manage session state
📝/goal — sets a completion condition and keeps working across turns until it holds
Interactive mode — keyboard shortcuts, input modes, and the interactive features of a live session
Voice dictation — speak your prompts with hold-to-record or tap-to-record
Status line — a custom bar monitoring context usage, cost, and git status
Screen reader mode — VoiceOver and NVDA support, plus magnifier, reduced-motion, and colorblind-friendly themes
Fullscreen rendering — flicker-free output with mouse support and stable memory in long conversations

Context and Cost

📝context window — what loads automatically, what each file read costs, and when rules and hooks fire
📝Compaction — automatic summarization as a conversation approaches the context limit
Prompt caching — managed automatically, with a model switch triggering one slow uncached turn
📝ENABLE_PROMPT_CACHING_1H — the extended one-hour cache for important but less frequently hit context
📝Model — model configuration including aliases such as opusplan
Fast mode — faster Opus responses, toggled per session
Cost management — token tracking, team spend limits, and the levers that actually reduce spend

Automation and Scheduling

📝Claude Code Routines — cloud runs on a schedule, on API calls, or on GitHub events, working while your machine is off
Desktop scheduled tasks — recurring runs on your own machine with direct access to local files and tools
/loop and cron tools — repeat a prompt within a session, poll for status, or set a one-time reminder
📝Headless Mode — run Claude Code programmatically from the CLI, Python, or TypeScript
Deep links — open a session from a URL, so a click in a runbook, alert, or dashboard lands in the right repo

Remote Work and Handoff

Remote Control — continue a local session from your phone, tablet, or any browser
Cloud sessions — move work between web and terminal with the cloud and teleport flags
Dispatch — message a task from your phone and open the desktop session it creates
Cloud environments — configure network access levels, environment variables, setup scripts, and caching
Self-hosted environments — run cloud sessions on infrastructure you control, with your own runners and identity

Integrations

Chrome — test web apps, debug with console logs, automate form filling, and extract data from pages
Computer use — open apps, click, type, and see your screen on macOS from the CLI
GitHub Actions — respond to mentions, automate tasks, and turn issues into pull requests
GitLab CI/CD — the same automation on GitLab pipelines
Code Review — automated PR review catching logic errors, security vulnerabilities, and regressions
ultrareview — a deep multi-agent cloud review that finds and verifies bugs before you merge
Claude Tag — brings Claude into your team's Slack channels
Slack — delegate coding tasks from a workspace; being retired for Team and Enterprise in favor of Claude Tag
Artifacts — publish session output as a live, interactive page on claude.ai, private or shared
GitHub Enterprise Server — connect web sessions, code review, and plugin marketplaces to a self-hosted instance

Security and Isolation

Sandboxed Bash tool — filesystem and network isolation for safer, more autonomous execution
Sandbox environments — pick an isolation level across the sandboxed tool, sandbox runtime, dev containers, Docker, and VMs
Claude Security plugin — scans a codebase for vulnerabilities and turns findings into patches you review and apply
security-guidance plugin — has Claude review its own changes for vulnerabilities and fix them in the same session
Zero data retention — available to qualified Claude for Enterprise accounts, with a documented disabled-feature set

Agent SDK

Agent SDK — build production agents with Claude Code as a library, in TypeScript or Python
Custom tools — define your own functions as tools through an in-process MCP server
Structured outputs — return validated JSON from agent workflows using JSON Schema, Zod, or Pydantic
SDK sessions — persist, resume, and fork conversation history, optionally mirrored to S3, Redis, or your own backend
File checkpointing — track file changes during a run and restore files to any previous state
Tool search — scale an agent to thousands of tools by loading only what the task needs
Observability — export traces, metrics, and events to your backend over OpenTelemetry
SDK hosting — subprocess architecture, session persistence, scaling, and multi-tenant isolation

Enterprise Deployment

Managed settings — centrally enforce policy, model access, and configuration across an organization
Server-managed settings — deliver that configuration from a server without device management infrastructure
Claude apps gateway — a self-hosted gateway with SSO, per-group model access, spend limits, and OTLP telemetry
Other LLM gateways — route Claude Code through a gateway your organization already runs
Amazon Bedrock — run Claude Code against Bedrock with its own setup and IAM configuration
Claude Platform on AWS — the Anthropic-operated API with AWS authentication and Marketplace billing
Google Cloud's Agent Platform — formerly Vertex AI, with its own setup and IAM configuration
Microsoft Foundry — run Claude Code through Foundry
Managed MCP — restrict which MCP servers users can add or connect to, with allowlists and denylists
Team analytics — usage metrics, adoption tracking, and engineering velocity in a dashboard
OpenTelemetry monitoring — export Claude Code telemetry to your observability backend
Enterprise network configuration — proxy servers, custom certificate authorities, and mutual TLS
Feature availability matrix — which features work on each subscription plan, console, and cloud provider