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admin-setup.md 2026-07-20 23:01 UTC to 2026-07-21 23:00 UTC

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Set up Claude Code for your organization

A decision map for administrators deploying Claude Code, covering API providers, managed settings, policy enforcement, usage monitoring, and data handling.

Claude Code enforces organization policy through managed settings that take precedence over local developer configuration. You deliver those settings from the Claude admin console, your mobile device management (MDM) system, or a file on disk. The settings control which tools, commands, servers, and network destinations Claude can reach.

This page walks through the deployment decisions in order. Each row links to the section below and to the reference page for that area.

Decision What you're choosing Reference
Choose your API provider Where Claude Code authenticates and how it's billed Authentication, Amazon Bedrock, Google Cloud's Agent Platform, Microsoft Foundry
Decide how settings reach devices How managed policy reaches developer machines Server-managed settings, Settings files
Decide what to enforce Which tools, commands, and integrations are allowed Permissions, Sandboxing
Set up usage visibility How you track spend and adoption Analytics, Monitoring, Costs
Review data handling Data retention and compliance posture Data usage, Security

Choose your API provider

Claude Code connects to Claude through one of several API providers. Your choice affects billing, authentication, which compliance posture you inherit, and which Claude Code features your developers can use.

Provider Choose this when
Claude for Teams / Enterprise You want Claude Code and claude.ai under one per-seat subscription with no infrastructure to run. This is the default recommendation.
Claude Console You're API-first or want pay-as-you-go billing
Amazon Bedrock You want to inherit existing AWS compliance controls and billing
Google Cloud's Agent Platform You want to inherit existing GCP compliance controls and billing
Microsoft Foundry You want to inherit existing Azure compliance controls and billing

Some Claude Code features require a claude.ai account. Claude Code on the web, Routines, Code Review, Remote Control, and the Chrome extension aren't available through Console API keys or cloud-provider credentials alone. If you deploy through Amazon Bedrock, Google Cloud's Agent Platform, or Microsoft Foundry, plan whether developers also need Claude for Teams or Enterprise seats. Each feature page lists its plan requirements.

For the full provider comparison covering authentication, regions, and feature parity, see the enterprise deployment overview. Each provider's auth setup is in Authentication.

Proxy and firewall requirements in Network configuration apply regardless of provider. If you want a single endpoint in front of multiple providers or centralized request logging, see LLM gateway.

Decide how settings reach devices

Managed settings define policy that takes precedence over local developer configuration. Claude Code checks the four sources below in priority order and applies the first one that returns a non-empty configuration. A small set of cross-source lock keys, such as the sandbox allowlist locks, is honored when any admin-controlled source sets them; when a policyHelper is configured, its output is the only source these checks read.

Mechanism Delivery Priority Platforms
Server-managed claude.ai admin console, or a self-hosted Claude apps gateway for gateway sign-ins Highest All
plist / registry policy macOS: com.anthropic.claudecode plist
Windows: HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\ClaudeCode		 High macOS, Windows
File-based managed macOS: /Library/Application Support/ClaudeCode/managed-settings.json
Linux and WSL: /etc/claude-code/managed-settings.json
Windows: C:\Program Files\ClaudeCode\managed-settings.json		 Medium All
Windows user registry HKCU\SOFTWARE\Policies\ClaudeCode Lowest Windows only

A configured policyHelper preempts all four sources: its output becomes the only managed configuration for the run. See Settings precedence.

Server-managed settings reach devices at authentication time and refresh hourly during active sessions, with no endpoint infrastructure. Delivery through the claude.ai admin console requires a Claude for Teams or Enterprise plan. Deployments on Amazon Bedrock, Google Cloud's Agent Platform, or Microsoft Foundry can get the same remote delivery by running a Claude apps gateway, or use one of the file-based or OS-level mechanisms instead.

If your organization mixes providers, configure server-managed settings for claude.ai users plus a file-based or plist/registry fallback so other users still receive managed policy.

The plist and HKLM registry locations work with any provider and resist tampering because they require admin privileges to write. The Windows user registry at HKCU is writable without elevation, so treat it as a convenience default rather than an enforcement channel.

By default, WSL reads only the Linux file path at /etc/claude-code. To extend your Windows registry and C:\Program Files\ClaudeCode policy to WSL on the same machine, set wslInheritsWindowsSettings: true in either of those admin-only Windows sources.

Whichever mechanism you choose, managed values take precedence over user and project settings. Array settings such as permissions.allow and permissions.deny merge entries from all sources, so developers can extend managed lists but not remove from them. For two exceptions, fallbackModel and availableModels, the managed value replaces lower layers rather than merging.

See Server-managed settings and Settings files and precedence.

WSL sessions in Claude Code Desktop

On Windows, Claude Code Desktop can run Code sessions inside a WSL 2 distribution. The session's Claude Code process runs inside the distribution, so it resolves managed settings through the WSL discovery path above: Windows-only sources don't reach it unless wslInheritsWindowsSettings: true is deployed.

On devices where managed settings are present, Desktop WSL sessions are unavailable by default. If your organization wants to enable them, contact your Anthropic account team. When they're enabled:

  • Deploy wslInheritsWindowsSettings: true through the HKLM registry or the C:\Program Files\ClaudeCode file so WSL sessions inherit the same policy as host sessions.
  • Verify by running /status inside a WSL session: the Setting sources line should show Enterprise managed settings with the Windows source you deployed, (HKLM) or (file).

Processes inside the WSL 2 utility VM aren't visible to Windows-side endpoint detection sensors. If you use CrowdStrike Falcon, enable the Falcon sensor for Linux on WSL 2 with the two exclusions CrowdStrike's WSL documentation requires, for the WSL virtual machine process and the VM disk image, so in-distro process and file activity is observable. Claude Code's OpenTelemetry tool-execution telemetry is emitted identically for WSL and native sessions.

Decide what to enforce

Managed settings can lock down tools, sandbox execution, restrict MCP servers and plugin sources, and control which hooks run. Each row is a control surface with the setting keys that drive it.

Control What it does Key settings
Permission rules Allow, ask, or deny specific tools and commands permissions.allow, permissions.deny
Permission lockdown Only managed permission rules apply; disable --dangerously-skip-permissions allowManagedPermissionRulesOnly, permissions.disableBypassPermissionsMode
Sandboxing OS-level filesystem and network isolation with domain allowlists sandbox.enabled, sandbox.network.allowedDomains
Managed policy CLAUDE.md Org-wide instructions loaded in every session, can't be excluded File at the managed policy path
MCP server control Restrict which MCP servers users can add or connect to, or deploy a fixed set allowedMcpServers, deniedMcpServers, allowManagedMcpServersOnly, or a deployed managed-mcp.json file
Plugin marketplace control Restrict which marketplace sources users can add and install from, reject the CLI flags that sideload plugins, agents, and MCP servers for a single run, and allowlist which marketplaces' plugins can be suggested strictKnownMarketplaces, blockedMarketplaces, disableSideloadFlags, pluginSuggestionMarketplaces
Customization lockdown Block skills, agents, hooks, and MCP servers from user and project sources, so they can only come from plugins or managed settings strictPluginOnlyCustomization
Hook restrictions Only managed hooks load; restrict HTTP hook URLs allowManagedHooksOnly, allowedHttpHookUrls
Login enforcement Restrict login to a specific method or Anthropic organization. The method restriction is enforced across the terminal, VS Code extension, Agent SDK, claude setup-token, and /install-github-app; the organization restriction covers the terminal, VS Code extension, and Agent SDK, except gateway sign-in, which doesn't authenticate against an Anthropic organization. {/* min-version: 2.1.212 */}Before v2.1.212, only terminal logins enforced either key. When set, sessions authenticated by ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN, or apiKeyHelper are blocked at startup; cloud provider sessions aren't affected forceLoginMethod, forceLoginOrgUUID
Disable agent view Turn off claude agents, --bg, /background, and the on-demand supervisor disableAgentView
Configure the corporate launcher Prefix the background-agent supervisor, its workers, and the other covered background processes with a required corporate launcher instead of turning agent view off processWrapper
Model restrictions availableModels filters which models appear in the picker. Adding enforceAvailableModels also constrains the auto-selected default model. See surface coverage for how this setting reaches the CLI, web, and IDE availableModels, enforceAvailableModels
Version floor Prevent auto-update from installing below an org-wide minimum minimumVersion
Required version range Refuse to start at all when the running version is outside an org-approved range. Stronger than minimumVersion, which only blocks downgrades requiredMinimumVersion, requiredMaximumVersion

Organizations whose members authenticate through claude.ai or the Anthropic API can also govern models without deploying settings: organization model restrictions disable individual models, an organization default model sets which model new sessions start on, and organization effort limits cap effort levels per role. All three controls require a Claude Enterprise plan. Model restrictions and effort limits are enforced server-side; the default model is a starting point that users can change, unless the organization enforces it. Enforcement is available to a limited set of organizations; ask your Anthropic account team about availability. None of these controls reach sessions on Amazon Bedrock, Google Cloud's Agent Platform, Microsoft Foundry, or Claude Platform on AWS; on those providers, use availableModels above for restrictions and the model key in managed settings for a default.

Claude Code on the web has its own admin surface: on the Cloud environments page in admin settings, owners and admins create organization-shared environments that set the network access level, environment variables, and setup script for members' cloud sessions, and choose the organization's default environment.

Permission rules and sandboxing cover different layers. Denying WebFetch blocks Claude's fetch tool, but if Bash is allowed, curl and wget can still reach any URL. Sandboxing closes that gap with a network domain allowlist enforced at the OS level.

For the threat model these controls defend against, see Security.

Set up usage visibility

Choose monitoring based on what you need to report on. The dashboards, APIs, and spend controls differ between Claude for Teams or Enterprise plans and Claude Console organizations, so check the Availability column before you plan your reporting around a capability.

Capability What you get Availability Where to start
Usage monitoring OpenTelemetry export of sessions, tools, and tokens All providers Monitoring usage
Analytics dashboard Adoption and contribution metrics with a leaderboard on Teams / Enterprise; per-user usage and spend metrics on Console Teams / Enterprise at claude.ai/analytics, Console at platform.claude.com/claude-code Analytics
Programmatic reporting Per-user usage and cost data over an API Enterprise Analytics API for Enterprise, Claude Code Analytics API for Console Costs
Spend controls Spend limits and rate limits Admin settings for Teams / Enterprise, workspace limits for Console; on third-party clouds, cloud budget controls or a Claude apps gateway with per-user spend limits Costs

On Teams and Enterprise, per-user usage and spend numbers come from the spend report in your organization's analytics settings, not the analytics dashboard. Cloud providers expose spend through AWS Cost Explorer, GCP Billing, or Azure Cost Management. For planning enterprise budgets across Claude chat, Claude Code, and Cowork, see the Claude Enterprise consumption guide.

Review data handling

On Team, Enterprise, Claude API, and cloud provider plans, Anthropic doesn't train models on your code or prompts. Your API provider determines retention and compliance posture.

Topic What to know Where to start
Data usage policy What Anthropic collects, how long it's retained, what's never used for training Data usage
Zero Data Retention (ZDR) Nothing stored after the request completes. Available to qualified accounts on Claude for Enterprise Zero data retention
Security architecture Network model, encryption, authentication, audit trail Security

If you need request-level audit logging or to route traffic by data sensitivity, place a gateway between developers and your provider: a self-hosted Claude apps gateway records a per-request audit log with IdP identity, or use another LLM gateway. For regulatory requirements and certifications, see Legal and compliance.

Verify and onboard

After configuring managed settings, have a developer run /status inside Claude Code. On the Status tab, the Setting sources line shows Enterprise managed settings followed by the source in parentheses, one of (remote), (plist), (HKLM), (HKCU), or (file). See Verify active settings.

Share these resources to help developers get started:

For login issues, point developers to authentication troubleshooting. The most common fixes are:

  • Run /logout then /login to switch accounts
  • Run claude update if the enterprise auth option is missing
  • Restart the terminal after updating

If a developer sees "You haven't been added to your organization yet," their seat doesn't include Claude Code access and needs to be updated in the admin console.

Next steps

With provider and delivery mechanism chosen, move on to detailed configuration: