Claude Code 2.1.181

Opening Claude Code is faster and steadier now. A small slowdown accidentally introduced in 2.1.169 — roughly 120ms (milliseconds, thousandths of a second) added on every launch in fresh environments — is gone: when no MCP servers (MCP server, the bridge Claude uses to plug in external tools) are configured, your first prompt no longer pointlessly waits for the remote settings fetch. When the account settings fetch is sluggish on a bad network, the terminal used to go blank and stall for up to 15 seconds; not anymore. If .claude.json (Claude's settings file) has corrupted null project entries in it, startup used to outright crash with TypeError: Cannot read properties of null; it now survives. And on macOS, when Spotlight (the system-wide search) is busy reindexing, the interface used to freeze the instant a session started — even Ctrl+C went ignored — and that's fixed too. Like starting a car that used to make you wait on cold mornings and occasionally threw a dashboard error or froze; now one turn of the key and it purrs to life.

Several connection and file issues that cost you time or data are fixed. AWS awsCredentialExport credentials (the keys proving you're a legitimate user) used to refresh frantically every minute when they neared expiry, and now also accept the JSON shape that aws configure export-credentials outputs. On custom ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL (a self-hosted API endpoint) and Foundry (an enterprise channel), prompt caching (the mechanism that caches repeated content to save money and time) used to miss the cache entirely because an attestation token (a verification marker) changed every single turn; it now reads the cache. Write/Edit writing to network drives or cloud-synced folders used to spit out 0-byte or truncated broken files; that's normal now. And when another Claude Code process (process, a second copy of the program running at the same time) runs the 30-day cleanup in the background, your long-idle sessions no longer mysteriously lose their history. Like a bank where the passbook used to get reprinted every minute, coupons wouldn't scan, and the occasional transfer came out as a blank entry — everything's normal now.

A few model-switching and delegation logics got untangled. When you run /recap (the recap-the-conversation feature) or fork (copy a conversation into a new branch) right after switching models, it used to keep running on the old model for a turn; now it uses the new one immediately. Foreground subagents used to spawn nested subagents (one inside another) without limit; they now obey the same 5-level depth cap as background subagents. And the API retry banner "Retrying in 0s · attempt N/10" used to linger on screen even after the retry succeeded; it disappears now. Like switching in a new chef who'd let the old one plate one more dish before handing over, apprentices who'd bounce a task between each other forever (now capped at five bounces), and a "remaking it" sign that comes down the moment the food is done instead of staying up.

Several landmines on different platforms and unusual setups are cleared. On macOS, auth flows (the sequence of login steps that grant permissions) using open, osascript, or a browser used to fail with error -600 because of a missing Apple Events entitlement (Apple's formal permission for apps to call each other); it's now been added. On Windows, ExitWorktree (the leave-a-worktree feature) used to refuse removing a clean worktree (worktree, the Git feature that spins up parallel copies of one project) with "Could not verify worktree state" because bare git couldn't be resolved; it now removes them properly. When ~/.claude/settings.json is a relative symlink living under another symlink (symlink, a file that points elsewhere like a shortcut), setting changes like /effort or /model used to throw ENOENT (a file-not-found error); they work now. And on Windows/OneDrive, when the agents directory (the folder holding your custom agents) already existed, creating an agent used to throw "EEXIST: file already exists"; it creates fine now. Like home renovation where certain wall types used to throw a blanket error the moment you drove in a nail — now solid walls, partition boards, and walls that already have holes all take nails without complaint.

Three clipboard (the place the system parks what you copy) bugs are fixed. In fullscreen, if you first made a native-terminal selection by modifier+drag (dragging while holding a key) and then hit Ctrl+C, it used to overwrite the clipboard with the app's prior selection; it no longer does. Ctrl+V, when the clipboard held text, used to show "No image found in clipboard" and refuse to paste; it now pastes the text normally. And on Linux, /copy and copy-on-select (copy the moment you select) used to fail to detect a clipboard utility that was installed after Claude Code started; they detect it now. Like a photocopier that used to copy over your originals with the previous job, refused anything but images when you fed it plain text, and didn't recognize a freshly installed paper tray — all working now.

A pile of small readability-affecting display issues are fixed. The line numbers from your IDE (editor plugin, like IntelliJ or VS Code) selection used to be off by one in context reminders; they're accurate now. Tab-indented code in the Write create-file preview used to render with wrong indentation; it's correct now. AskUserQuestion (the feature where Claude asks you back) preview content used to get cut off at the dialog edge; it now word-wraps, and a typed "Other" free-text answer in a multi-select question used to be silently dropped on submit; it's now preserved. /stats "Most active day" and the daily token (a usage unit) chart used to show one day early in UTC-negative timezones (regions behind world-standard time, like the Americas); they're accurate now. Opening a URL in fullscreen now requires Cmd+click (macOS) / Ctrl+click, matching native terminals. The Improved N memories line no longer lists individual files outside verbose mode. Input messages queued until your turn ends now get a full-width background highlight. And on Ghostty (a terminal app), the activity spinner's pulse used to dwell on the wrong glyph size; it's normal now. Like a sloppily laid-out report where the line numbers were one off, tables spilled past the margin, dates were a day early, and even the loading animation flickered in size — now everything lines up.