A checkout bug turns out to involve three files across two folders, and you have only one of them open. You describe the symptom to Claude Code. What can it work with?

The principle — the scope of a task is what the task needs, not what you happen to have open.

Why the key is correct — because Claude sees the whole project it can work across it. Anthropic describes exactly this shape: asked to fix a bug, it searches for relevant files, reads several to understand the context, makes coordinated edits and runs the tests. Finding the two files you did not have open is part of the work rather than something you must do first, and the contrast Anthropic draws is with inline code assistants that only see the current file.

Why the others are wrong — the open-tab limit and the attachment limit both describe tools that cannot go looking. Producing a combined patch is closer, but it reinstates the manual apply step that separates a chat assistant from an agentic one.

Remember this — describe the symptom, not the file list; locating the cause is part of what you delegated.

Sources — Anthropic's How Claude Code works.