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anthropic Claude Code Releases · · 2.1.261

Claude Code v2.1.261 Enhances Diagnostics, Output Limits, and Fixes Bugs

sdkaiengineermedia
feature patch

Anthropic has released Claude Code v2.1.261, bringing several enhancements and bug fixes to its AI assistant for developers. The update improves diagnostic capabilities by clarifying organization policy loading issues and introducing a tool to identify unused skills, while also increasing command and task output limits. It also addresses numerous stability and usability issues across the CLI, VS Code integration, and Remote Control features. These changes primarily affect developers and engineers using Claude Code in various environments, aiming to provide a more robust and transparent experience.

  • →Added --append-subagent-system-prompt-file to read the subagent system prompt from a file, for prompts too large to pass on the command line
  • →Added /skill-doctor to show which loaded skills go unused and what they cost in context, so you can prune them
  • →Fixed typed or pasted characters occasionally landing out of order or being dropped during fast input or key repeat
  • →Fixed /add-dir <subdirectory> printing a false "couldn't be resolved" error when the working directory is on a /net automount
  • →Fixed being unable to delete the character immediately before an inline [Image #N] chip in the prompt input
Features (4) ›

  • Added an "Organization policy" line to /status and claude doctor that says why your organization's policy could not be loaded, such as a proxy not passing the endpoint through

  • Added bashOutputMaxChars and taskOutputMaxChars settings to raise how much command and background-task output Claude receives inline before it is saved to a file, up to 128K characters

  • Added --append-subagent-system-prompt-file to read the subagent system prompt from a file, for prompts too large to pass on the command line
  • Added /skill-doctor to show which loaded skills go unused and what they cost in context, so you can prune them
Enhancements (10) ›

  • Improved the /model picker and the VS Code model pill to show a model's name instead of its raw Bedrock, Vertex AI, or LLM gateway ID when Claude Code recognizes it

  • Improved startup on Google Vertex AI when GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS is set: API client creation no longer re-runs Google Cloud project discovery or spawns extra gcloud processes

  • Improved streaming performance: already-rendered blocks are no longer re-checked by layout on each update
  • Improved the dangerous-rm safety prompt to also catch rm -rf on positional parameters and inside double-quoted sh -c scripts

  • Improved handling when the API sends no response headers: the retry now waits up to API_TIMEOUT_MS (10 minutes by default) instead of another 3 minutes, and the messages say what to change

  • Changed a Claude apps gateway 403 on the managed settings load (at startup or after /login) to say Claude Code may not be enabled for the organization, instead of advising a new sign-in

  • Changed machines whose managed settings pin forceLoginMethod: "gateway" to ignore a leftover API key or claude.ai login and ask for /login; Bedrock, Vertex AI, and Foundry sessions are unaffected

  • Changed auto mode to treat a link that packs content into a public diagram renderer's URL as an upload to that site: no longer auto-approved unless you asked for it

  • Changed the prompt's word-editing keys to match Bash: Ctrl+W deletes back to whitespace, Alt+F and Alt+D stop at word end, punctuation separates words; keybindingFlavor no longer has any effect

  • Changed /context token counting to use a local estimate when the token-counting API is unavailable, instead of extra small-model requests
Fixes (27) ›
  • Fixed typed or pasted characters occasionally landing out of order or being dropped during fast input or key repeat
  • Fixed /add-dir <subdirectory> printing a false "couldn't be resolved" error when the working directory is on a /net automount

  • Fixed the Bedrock setup wizard hanging when AWS or an AWS credential helper never responds (it now times out with a clear error), and its model checks failing behind a TLS-inspecting proxy

  • Fixed cloud sessions discarding a plugin synced from claude.ai when managed settings force-enable it in enabledPlugins, then falling back to a marketplace clone that could fail

  • Fixed being unable to delete the character immediately before an inline [Image #N] chip in the prompt input
  • Fixed resuming a session losing hook output and other context around parallel tool calls, which changed the resumed request

  • Fixed Remote Control showing a stale permission mode when a phone, browser, or claude.ai app attaches to a terminal session or after the mode changes in the terminal

  • Fixed Remote Control sessions showing as still working (stuck spinner and Stop button) after stopping a turn from a connected phone or browser, or after a local slash command like /clear

  • Fixed SDK and cloud sessions ignoring a Stop or interrupt sent just after the first prompt, before the turn had started; the turn now stops instead of running to completion

  • Fixed Remote Control uploading a session pulled with /teleport into the connected session, which appeared appended to the original on phone and web

  • Fixed Remote Control's inbound event stream failing behind TLS-inspecting corporate proxies on native Windows
  • Fixed Remote Control sessions showing the default effort level on claude.ai when the effort comes from settings
  • Fixed gcpAuthRefresh opening a browser at startup when the Google credential check was slow, even though the credential was still valid

  • Fixed claude.ai connectors staying absent for the whole session when the startup connector fetch timed out — the CLI now retries in the background

  • Fixed sustained high CPU usage when a background agent could not be resumed and its wake-up was retried in a tight loop
  • Fixed feature flags gated to a newer version occasionally applying to an older Claude Code version running on the same machine

  • Fixed /usage and the VS Code usage panel dropping a model-specific weekly limit row when the usage endpoint is rate limited or when opened right after startup

  • Fixed claude -p --resume <file> adopting a malformed session ID recorded in the transcript; it now resumes under a fresh session ID instead

  • Fixed the terminal progress indicator (iTerm2, Ghostty, ConEmu) showing the session as finished while a background workflow or agent was still running

  • Fixed a rare layout glitch where a box could render with the wrong height after its container switched between row and column direction

  • Fixed Claude apps gateway client IP when a trusted proxy appends a port to X-Forwarded-For; with an access list set, an unreadable entry now gets 403

  • Fixed Claude apps gateway telling Claude Desktop to export OpenTelemetry as JSON even when the terminal CLI uses protobuf, so protobuf-only collectors rejected Desktop's data

  • Fixed Desktop and web showing a session as busy while it only watches an artifact for updates

  • Fixed Claude in Chrome file_upload failing with "paths: expected array, received undefined" in local Cowork sessions run from the Claude Desktop app

  • Fixed SendMessage to an offline Remote Control session on another machine reading as delivered; the result now says delivery is queued until that machine reconnects

  • Fixed plugin install hints from CLIs run in background Bash commands: they are now detected, and the raw <claude-code-hint> tag no longer leaks into the conversation

  • Fixed in-process agent-team teammates re-sending their first-turn tool and skill announcements on the second turn, which changed the request prefix and missed the prompt cache

Read the original announcement →

https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/releases/tag/v2.1.261

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