Anthropic has announced an upgrade to the task management system within its Claude Code developer tool, evolving from simple "Todos" to a more robust "Tasks" primitive. The change is designed to help the AI assistant track and complete more complicated, multi-step projects.

The company stated that as model capabilities have advanced—specifically with Opus 4.5's improved ability to run autonomously—the need for a more sophisticated coordination system became apparent. The new Tasks system allows Claude Code to break down larger projects into discrete units that can have dependencies on one another.

Key Features of the New System

According to the announcement, Tasks introduce several key improvements:

· Dependencies and Coordination: Tasks can be created with dependencies, mirroring how complex software projects are structured.

· Multi-Session Collaboration: Task lists are stored in the file system (~/.claude/tasks), allowing multiple coding sessions or subagents to collaborate on the same project. Updates to a task are broadcast to all active sessions working on that list.

· Persistence and Utility: The file-based storage allows developers to build additional custom utilities on top of the task system.

Developer Workflow

Developers can direct Claude Code to create tasks during a conversation. To coordinate multiple sessions on a single project, they can launch Claude Code with a specific task list ID set as an environment variable (e.g., CLAUDE_CODE_TASK_LIST_ID=project_name claude).

The update is positioned as a foundational building block to "unhobble" the AI's capabilities, enabling it to manage longer-horizon work more effectively. The feature is available now in Claude Code.