Why use settingSources

Disable filesystem settings:

import { query } from "@anthropic-ai/claude-agent-sdk";

// Do not load user, project, or local settings from disk
const result = query({
  prompt: "Analyze this code",
  options: { settingSources: [] }
});

Load only specific setting sources:

import { query } from "@anthropic-ai/claude-agent-sdk";

// Load only project settings, ignore user and local
const result = query({
  prompt: "Run CI checks",
  options: {
    settingSources: ["project"] // Only .claude/settings.json
  }
});

To load CLAUDE.md project instructions, include "project" in settingSources. See Modify system prompts for how CLAUDE.md loading interacts with the system prompt options.