I Put a Setting in My Project Config and It Did Nothing
I put autoMode in .claude/settings.json , committed it, and it had no effect. The JSON was valid. Startup printed no warning. --debug said nothing. I spent a while assuming I had the semantics wrong before I found the actual reason: that key does not apply from that file. Settings have a scope, and the scope is not in the file Claude Code's settings reference has a column I had never read…
The article discusses a common issue with the .claude/settings.json file in Claude Code. The author puts the autoMode setting in the .claude/settings.json file, but it has no effect. The JSON is valid, there are no warnings, and no error occurs, but the setting does not work. The author found out that the key autoMode does not apply from the .claude/settings.json file, but only from the user or managed settings.
There are 71 scoped keys out of 223 total keys in the settings, and three of these keys (useAutoModeDuringPlan, syncClaudeAiSkills, and skipDangerousModePermissionPrompt) apply only to the user or managed scope. The author learned this the hard way after maintaining a list of these keys manually by copying them from the documentation.
The author then creates a checker to inspect the settings object, but it only checks the top level of the object and fails to catch the nested keys that have a different scope. The author also explains that the scope of a setting is determined by the directory being scanned, not just the path of the file. The author provides a link to a full list of the 71 scoped keys and the same list in JSON format for reference.
The article ends with a mention of a real tool built using this workflow and a product page for the complete kit.
Written by urgent.news from Dev.to's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
