Claude Code web search no longer stops at 200 calls: it refills about 100 per hour

An interactive session used to stop running WebSearch after 200 calls, a number a research fan-out across subagents reaches quickly. Since v2.1.290 (October 5), a terminal session's limit refills at about 100 calls per hour.

Set the refill rate with an environment variable.

# refill only 50 per hour
export CLAUDE_CODE_WEB_SEARCH_REFILLS_PER_HOUR=50

Use plain digits; any other spelling reads as unset. 0 turns refill off, and non-interactive runs such as claude -p default to 0, so they never refill.

To raise the cap itself, use CLAUDE_CODE_MAX_WEB_SEARCHES_PER_SESSION. It can be raised but not turned off.

export CLAUDE_CODE_MAX_WEB_SEARCHES_PER_SESSION=500

In a hurry, /clear starts a new conversation and resets the count, unless work that can still spawn subagents, such as a running workflow, survives the clear.