2.1.257 — Claude code - Product release notes & changelog tool

Added Claude Fable 5.1 (claude-fable-5-1), now the default Fable model — 1M context, $10/$50 per Mtok with $0.25/Mtok cache reads
Added “Time format” (timeFormat) and timeZone settings: 12-hour, 24-hour, 24-hour UTC, or a strftime pattern for the turn-end clock and transcript-view timestamps
Added a Containment Escape rule to auto mode so cloud metadata-credential fetches, egress evasion, and cross-tenant reach are no longer auto-approved unless your environment marks them expected
Added CLAUDE_CODE_SUBAGENT_MODEL_FORCE to apply CLAUDE_CODE_SUBAGENT_MODEL (or the main model) to every subagent, ignoring per-spawn and agent-definition model overrides
Added s in /effort to change effort for the current session only, matching /model
Added a /doctor warning for stale sandbox mask files left by a killed session
Added a one-time prompt in auto mode before the first file read outside the working directories, with the option to block such reads (permissions.blockReadsOutsideWorkingDirectories)
Added support for a gateway-supplied description on discovered /model picker entries (CLAUDE_CODE_ENABLE_GATEWAY_MODEL_DISCOVERY); entries without one still read “From gateway”
Fixed settings in a .claude/ folder created after startup not being picked up until restart
Fixed sessions dispatched from an agent view opened with ← always starting in the original session’s permission mode, overriding the target directory’s defaultMode and the agent’s permissionMode
Fixed keybindings.json rebinds of Ctrl+G being ignored in claude agents; its Ctrl+S / Ctrl+T are now rebindable via the new Agents context
Fixed background sessions failing to start on macOS npm installs during a self-update, and on Windows when a stale daemon lock file pointed at a reused process id
Fixed the working spinner stopping while a response streams behind a slash-command panel
Fixed a background session’s state.json detail repeating its own dispatch prompt after a scheduled wake-up
Fixed claude agents keeping a background session you re-prompted buried in Completed after it finished again; Completed now orders by the latest finish
Fixed claude --bg from a directory that was just deleted reporting “backgrounded” and leaving a crashed session row; it now prints the reason and exits 1
Fixed Remote Control connecting mid-session re-sending the Bash tool definition, causing a prompt-cache miss
Fixed a doubly-listed custom Authorization header overriding the configured credential on Bedrock, Mantle, Vertex, and WIF, and the Vertex setup wizard picking up a leftover Anthropic profile from ~/.config/anthropic
Fixed Claude apps gateway sending stray host Authorization or profile headers to Foundry, Vertex, and Bedrock, and Foundry Entra ID upstreams not starting when ANTHROPIC_FOUNDRY_API_KEY is set
Fixed a leftover Anthropic API key or auth token being sent alongside your Foundry subscription key in API-key mode
Fixed /schedule routines whose prompt was saved without a message role and then ran with nothing to do
Fixed claude agents not saying that a background session is waiting for you to approve a message from another session, or who sent it
Fixed a prompt stashed with Ctrl+S inside an opened background session being lost when the session went idle or was stopped and then reopened
Fixed telemetry (OTEL) settings pushed through server-managed settings being ignored on warm starts, including desktop-app Code sessions
Fixed a teammate permission request being answered twice when the leader’s mailbox write was briefly locked
Fixed a phantom duplicate slash-command row rendering below the in-flight turn while a command’s auto-continued response streamed
Fixed policyHelper timeoutMs and refreshIntervalMs values above the timer maximum (2147483647) causing failures or re-runs every millisecond; they are now clamped
Fixed the token counter freezing or crawling after switching to another subagent’s transcript, and made background subagents’ and teammates’ counters update live while a response streams
Fixed sandbox network hosts written with a trailing dot (example.com.): a deniedDomains entry didn’t block the host inside the sandbox, and “don’t ask again” for such a host kept prompting
Fixed dismissing the Remote Control consent prompt (Esc, or n at claude remote-control) counting as consent, so the next request connected without asking
Fixed /mcp reconnect and enable still connecting a settings-file MCP server that a managed MCP allow/deny list or strictPluginOnlyCustomization loaded after startup should block
Fixed claude mcp remove leaving a remote server’s stored OAuth credentials behind when strictPluginOnlyCustomization locks MCP to plugin-only servers
Fixed Remote Control (claude remote-control) sessions started from the Claude app ignoring the selected model and running on the machine’s default instead
Fixed --disallowedTools and session deny rules being dropped after the first settings reload when allowManagedPermissionRulesOnly is enabled
Fixed --resume listing a backgrounded conversation twice and --continue reopening its stalled pre-background copy; --continue now also opens finished background sessions
Fixed fullscreen mode not letting you click ! shell command output to expand it
Fixed background sessions left running an older Claude Code binary piling up across auto-updates instead of being retired
Fixed claude agents --json briefly switching the terminal to raw mode and undoing another program’s terminal settings on exit
Fixed Proactive output style sessions busy-looping with filler messages and repeated log reads instead of idling while a background command or Monitor they started is still running
Fixed subagents stopping when a response was cut off mid-stream by a computer sleep, dropped connection, or server error; they now automatically continue instead of ending with an incomplete response
Fixed ← doing nothing in the /btw panel inside a claude agents session: it now returns to the agents list (even mid-answer), and the panel comes back when you reopen the session
Fixed sessions with an advisor model set missing the prompt cache on background requests (compaction, /recap, prompt suggestions) and re-sending the full conversation uncached each time
Fixed claude -p exiting about 5 seconds after its final result while a Monitor the model armed was still running; it now waits for the watch to fire or time out
Fixed a permissions.ask rule being skipped in auto mode when the matching command ran inside a compound command or subshell, letting it run without the confirmation prompt
Fixed plugins being able to read files outside their own directory through a declared command, agent, skill, hooks or other component path that is a symlink; such paths are now refused with an error
Fixed /add-dir rejecting a directory inside the current working directory; it now loads that directory’s skills, commands, and agents like --add-dir does at startup
Fixed the main agent not being told when you resume a subagent you had stopped from its transcript view
Fixed a crash when pasting ANSI-colored text (e.g. a CI log) into dialogs like /feedback
Fixed claude mcp add/remove hanging or exhausting memory when the project’s .mcp.json is a FIFO or a device-file symlink; it now fails fast with an actionable message
Fixed unbounded memory growth when non-JSONL data is piped into claude -p --input-format stream-json; it now fails fast with a clear error
Fixed backgrounding a turn (← or Ctrl+B) while a subagent or other tool was running occasionally making the background session treat that tool as rejected instead of re-running it
Fixed Bash Read()/Edit() deny rules not applying to < file redirects and reader commands like tac and egrep; a deny rule on any argument or redirect target now refuses the command
Fixed resuming or messaging a subagent whose transcript had grown past 5 MB (for example after reading many images) failing with “No transcript found”
Fixed worktree-isolated sessions refusing Bash loops, $VAR reads, "$(…)" and heredocs that never touch git as “too complex to verify that it stays inside the worktree”
Fixed /model and /effort showing a prompt-cache warning after rewinding a conversation back to empty
Fixed prompt-cache misses on every turn in long screenshot-heavy sessions once images exceeded the per-request size cap
Fixed the Edit permission prompt’s diff view rendering emoji and multi-code-point characters with incorrect widths
Fixed WebSocket MCP server connection failures being logged as “[object ErrorEvent]” instead of the underlying error
Fixed background sessions failing to open with “Couldn’t start the background service” while another Claude Code process was downloading an npm update; the start now waits for it
Fixed background commands that detach from their shell (for example under timeout or setsid) surviving a task stop or Claude Code exit
Fixed Claude not being told when you stop a background command from the tasks panel or a connected client
Fixed stopping a background subagent leaving its monitors running
Fixed sandboxed git commands in a linked worktree losing write access to the repository’s common .git directory after cd into a subdirectory
Fixed Bedrock and Bedrock Mantle requests going silent during long hidden-thinking phases on Opus 4.7 and later, which let idle timeouts cut the connection; the stream now carries progress events
Fixed launching Claude Code after a Claude apps gateway expired or revoked your session: it now says the session ended and offers /login instead of reporting a network error
Fixed cloud sessions losing git/GitHub credentials for the rest of the session when the session’s network proxy failed to start at launch; it now retries in the background and recovers
Fixed leftover cc-daemon-* folders in the system temp directory after an interrupted background daemon start; the cleanupPeriodDays retention sweep now removes them
Fixed Bash permission checks auto-approving certain [[ ]] conditionals that zsh parses differently from bash; these commands now prompt for approval
Fixed the managed-settings approval prompt showing the generic warning instead of its telemetry wording when the settings also turn detailed tracing or raw API body logging off, or trace export on
Fixed agent-team teammates in tmux/iTerm2 panes sometimes staying open after acknowledging a shutdown request
Fixed the keyless Console sign-in (“Sign in with your Console account”) not applying your organization’s server-managed settings, and /status not showing the Organization for that sign-in
Improved rendering performance: less re-render work per turn in long conversations, streaming no longer slows down as the reply grows, and background-agent updates no longer re-render the whole screen
Improved prompt input responsiveness by reducing per-keystroke rendering work
Improved policy helper diagnostics — refresh failures now show in /status, declining the managed-settings dialog prints why Claude Code exited, and helper timeouts are reported as timeouts
Improved /code-review --comment to post findings on GitLab merge requests via glab mr note instead of reporting the target as unsupported
Improved notifications: an MCP elicitation or permission ask queued under another dialog now sends its idle desktop notification at the same delay as a visible ask
Improved verbose/transcript output: async hook completion notices that arrive together now appear on one line instead of one line per hook
Improved claude self-hosted-runner --configure-git to also enable git push negotiation, so the first push of a new branch from a stale clone uploads only the new commits instead of the whole tree
Improved liveness reporting to SDK hosts while a response is held open by gateway keep-alives, so long waits under a raised CLAUDE_STREAM_IDLE_TIMEOUT_MS are not mistaken for a hung session
Improved MCP connection and OAuth debug/error logs so credentials carried in a server’s URL or request headers are redacted
Improved /fork to keep the original conversation’s prompt cache in the new background session: its worktree briefing now arrives as a message instead of a system-prompt change
Improved emoji autocomplete to accept the remaining GitHub/Slack shortcode aliases (:satisfied:, :telephone:, :collision:, …)
Changed --effort to lift a new model’s default-effort hold for that session only rather than permanently; an effort picked on claude.ai for a Remote Control session now applies during the hold
Changed a policyHelper in MDM or managed-settings.json shadowed at launch by cached server-managed settings to run (or exit) as soon as the fetch reports them removed, not at the next launch
Changed managedSourcesBehavior: "merge" to take sandbox.credentials.awsPairs and sandbox.ripgrep whole from the highest managed source that sets them instead of combining the sources’ values
Changed gateway model discovery (CLAUDE_CODE_ENABLE_GATEWAY_MODEL_DISCOVERY=1) to run even when CLAUDE_CODE_DISABLE_NONESSENTIAL_TRAFFIC is set, since it only queries your gateway
Changed claude --resume <session-id> --bg to continue that session under its own ID when nothing is running it, instead of silently starting a copy; a copy is now announced
Changed /btw history browsing from ←/→ to Shift+←/Shift+→ (or [/]), stepping through your recent side questions and back to the live answer
Changed defaultMode: "bypassPermissions" in .claude/settings.json or .claude/settings.local.json to be ignored, like "auto"; set it in user or managed settings, or pass --permission-mode
Changed fable and best in Claude apps gateway sessions to keep resolving to Fable 5 for now, since gateways not yet configured for Fable 5.1 reject it; pick Fable 5.1 in /model to use it
Changed --add-dir, /add-dir, and additionalDirectories to refuse network paths (UNC shares, /net/<host> automounts) with a message before touching them; on Windows use a mapped drive letter
Changed Claude apps gateway sign-in and token refresh requests to verify the gateway’s pinned TLS certificate, as the managed settings fetch already does
Changed Cowork and claude.ai cloud sessions: reading an artifact that isn’t yours now always asks you first, even in auto mode
Removed the Ctrl+E command explanation on Bash and PowerShell permission prompts
[VSCode] Added collapsible ACCOUNT & USAGE and SESSION MANAGER section headers to the session list panel, with the account email, the usage meter, and a View details link opening the usage dialog
[VSCode] Added a model pill to the input footer that shows the current model and opens the model picker, with an Effort row and a “More models” page
[VSCode] Added a collapse toggle to the Ungrouped section of the session list
[VSCode] Added output style selection to the command menu, including custom styles
[VSCode] Fixed third-party provider deployments (Bedrock, Vertex, and others) still showing claude.ai-only features (remote sessions, dictation, usage) and calling claude.ai with a leftover login
[VSCode] Fixed the session list panel’s usage meter staying blank after the panel loads; it now shows the last known usage immediately
[VSCode] Fixed the “Enable Remote Control for all sessions” toggle so turning it on or off applies to sessions that are already open, not only to new ones
[VSCode] Fixed screen reader announcements: a control character before a fence or heading no longer drops visible lines from speech, and bold markers spanning a heading are no longer mis-paired
[VSCode] Changed the action menu to list slash commands in a filterable “Slash commands” dialog instead of inline; picking one runs it; the MCP servers dialog gained the same filter box
[VSCode] Changed “Delete session” to “Archive session”: archived sessions move to a collapsible “Archived sessions” group at the bottom of the list with an Unarchive action