Claude Code's background-subagent status updates now cost about 99% less

Anthropic's ClaudeDevs account said on X on November 4 that background subagents in Claude Code now use less of the usage limit. A running subagent updates its status line every 30 seconds, and each update used to re-read the subagent's whole conversation. Now Haiku 5.5 writes the status line from short notes instead, which Anthropic says makes each update cost about 99% less. The subagent itself keeps its own model.

Anthropic says sessions with background subagents used about 5% less of the usage limit, so the same limit gets about 6% more prompts. It says the change is live for most Pro, Max and Ultra users and for everyone on Team and Enterprise, and asks users to update to Claude Code v2.1.316 or later.

The status-line updates were the subject of an October 28 write-up by users, who measured them at 16–20% of their Claude Code requests. Anthropic's post does not mention that report.