---
title: "Claude Managed Agents"
description: "Anthropic's cloud-hosted agent runtime platform decoupling reasoning loops from containerized sandbox execution."
section: "concepts"
type: "concept"
created: "2026-08-30"
updated: "2026-08-30"
confidence: "high"
tags: ["agents", "context-engineering", "workflow", "security"]
canonical: "https://pyweb.dev/wiki/claude-managed-agents"
---
# Claude Managed Agents

**Claude Managed Agents (CMA)** is [anthropic](/wiki/anthropic)'s cloud-hosted infrastructure platform for deploying autonomous, long-running agent workflows. CMA decouples agent reasoning orchestration from tool execution environments, providing sandboxed Linux microVMs, persistent server-side event logs, prompt caching, and granular permission gates. [[source: anthropic-claude-managed-agents-overview-2026]](/wiki/raw/articles/anthropic-claude-managed-agents-overview-2026)

## Core Architectural Primitives

```mermaid
graph TD
    A[Claude Managed Agents Platform] --> B[Agent: Model, Prompt, Tools, Skills]
    A --> C[Environment: Managed Cloud or Self-Hosted Sandbox]
    A --> D[Session: Stateful Execution Instance & Filesystem]
    A --> E[Events: Persistent Bidirectional Event Log]
```

1. **Agent:** Reusable definition specifying base model (Claude Opus/Sonnet), system prompts, MCP tool definitions, and skill packages.
2. **Environment:** Configuration for execution boundaries—either Anthropic-managed cloud sandboxes with pre-installed Linux utilities or self-hosted sandboxes for strict enterprise data residency.
3. **Session:** Stateful runtime instance binding an agent to an environment. Retains ephemeral filesystem state, tool outputs, and execution context across multi-hour turns.
4. **Events:** Authoritative, append-only server-side event store capturing every user input, reasoning phase, tool call, output, and error.

 [[source: anthropic-claude-managed-agents-overview-2026]](/wiki/raw/articles/anthropic-claude-managed-agents-overview-2026)

## Decoupled Architecture: Brain vs. Hands

CMA implements the structural separation of machine reasoning from untrusted execution:
- **The Brain:** The reasoning engine running Claude models, managing prompt compaction, prompt caching, and context assembly.
- **The Hands:** Ephemeral, isolated execution sandboxes executing bash commands, reading/writing local files, querying web search APIs, or calling remote MCP endpoints.

 [[source: anthropic-claude-managed-agents-overview-2026]](/wiki/raw/articles/anthropic-claude-managed-agents-overview-2026)

## Permission Gating & Human-in-the-Loop

CMA implements policy-based permission gates on sensitive tools (e.g., `bash`, custom actions):
- When a gated tool is selected, the session emits `agent.tool_use` and parks with `session.status_idle` containing `stop_reason: requires_action`.
- Clients resolve the gate by submitting a `user.tool_confirmation` event (`allow` or `deny`).
- Denials are fed directly into the transcript as tool error feedback, prompting the agent to adjust strategy without repeating identical failures. [[source: assistant-ui-claude-managed-agents-2026]](/wiki/raw/articles/assistant-ui-claude-managed-agents-2026)

## Frontend & Protocol Integration

Via adapters such as [AG UI](/wiki/ag-ui-protocol) and client libraries ([copilotkit](/wiki/copilotkit), assistant-ui), CMA sessions map 1:1 to user chat threads:
- **Zero Local Message Tables:** The frontend queries `sessions.events.list()` as the single source of truth.
- **Stream Replay Consistency:** Replaying past sessions and streaming active runs execute through the identical event-folding reducer. [[source: assistant-ui-claude-managed-agents-2026]](/wiki/raw/articles/assistant-ui-claude-managed-agents-2026)

## Cross-links
- [anthropic](/wiki/anthropic) — platform creator
- [ag ui protocol](/wiki/ag-ui-protocol) — frontend interaction protocol
- [agent native infrastructure](/wiki/agent-native-infrastructure) — underlying compute paradigm
- [copilotkit](/wiki/copilotkit) — integration ecosystem partner

---

## Agent Navigation

cluster: agents (3 pages) | betweenness: 1

### References (outbound)
- [Anthropic](https://pyweb.dev/wiki/anthropic.md)
- [AG-UI Protocol](https://pyweb.dev/wiki/ag-ui-protocol.md)
- [Agent-Native Infrastructure](https://pyweb.dev/wiki/agent-native-infrastructure.md)
- [CopilotKit](https://pyweb.dev/wiki/copilotkit.md)

### Referenced by (inbound)
- [AG-UI Protocol](https://pyweb.dev/wiki/ag-ui-protocol.md)
- [Agent-Native Infrastructure](https://pyweb.dev/wiki/agent-native-infrastructure.md)
- [Anthropic](https://pyweb.dev/wiki/anthropic.md)
- [CopilotKit](https://pyweb.dev/wiki/copilotkit.md)

### Evidence (verified primary sources)
- [anthropic-claude-managed-agents-overview-2026](https://pyweb.dev/wiki/raw/articles/anthropic-claude-managed-agents-overview-2026.md) | origin: https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/managed-agents/overview | ingested: 2026-08-30 | sha256: 85e7cc25595bea746e6752d361db13b58020d159237d4fe11cdef2fc120bc816
- [copilotkit-cma-agui-2026](https://pyweb.dev/wiki/raw/articles/copilotkit-cma-agui-2026.md) | origin: https://www.copilotkit.ai/blog/claude-managed-agents-agui-compatible | ingested: 2026-08-30 | sha256: fd039f20d339482af3c4c6eefce6b6c2d5c621cf76815b45ff2a5cd5074cfeef
- [assistant-ui-claude-managed-agents-2026](https://pyweb.dev/wiki/raw/articles/assistant-ui-claude-managed-agents-2026.md) | origin: https://www.assistant-ui.com/docs/runtimes/claude-managed-agents | ingested: 2026-08-30 | sha256: 4dedb8e6f8c04ea58b2dcd8c7b61b16594bb11c60c8dc1b3f461dcf68c7e67db

### Machine endpoints
- Knowledge graph: https://pyweb.dev/api/graph.json
- Graph analysis: https://pyweb.dev/api/graph-analysis.json
- Context index: https://pyweb.dev/llms.txt