diff --git a/src/daemon/index.ts b/src/daemon/index.ts
index 3c51f90..689952a 100644
--- a/src/daemon/index.ts
+++ b/src/daemon/index.ts
@@ -110,7 +110,21 @@ export interface StartDaemonOptions {
   configPath?: string;
 }
 
+function validateUnsupportedConfig(config: Config): void {
+  if (config.backends.claude_code.enabled) {
+    throw new Error('backends.claude_code is not implemented yet. Set backends.claude_code.enabled=false.');
+  }
+  if (config.backends.opencode.enabled) {
+    throw new Error('backends.opencode is not implemented yet. Set backends.opencode.enabled=false.');
+  }
+  if (config.agents.auto_escalate) {
+    throw new Error('agents.auto_escalate is not implemented yet. Set agents.auto_escalate=false.');
+  }
+}
+
 export async function startDaemon(config: Config, options?: StartDaemonOptions): Promise<DaemonContext> {
+  validateUnsupportedConfig(config);
+
   // ── Log level ──
   setLogLevel(config.log_level);
 
diff --git a/src/daemon/routing.ts b/src/daemon/routing.ts
index 3174d8e..e8cf86d 100644
--- a/src/daemon/routing.ts
+++ b/src/daemon/routing.ts
@@ -84,7 +84,6 @@ function parseResearchPrefix(text: string): string | undefined {
   }
   return undefined;
 }
-
 /**
  * Create the unified message handler for the channel registry.
  * Each channel+sender pair gets its own AgentOrchestrator backed by a persistent session.