Claude Code v2.1.246 Released: Fixes Terminal & MCP Integration Issues, Enhances Background Session Stability

What's changed

• Added a startup warning for Bash allow rules with a wildcard before the subcommand (e.g. Bash(git * main)), since they also match options inserted before the subcommand
• Added an Auto mode tab to /permissions for viewing and editing auto mode classifier rules
• Added the turn's completion time to the end-of-turn duration line, e.g. ✻ Sautéed for 23s · done 6:05 PM
• Fixed fullscreen mode showing a blank transcript after resizing the terminal and jumping to the bottom until the next keypress
• Fixed a severe transcript slowdown when a diff contained a very long single line (e.g. a base64 string); such lines now render truncated with a marker
• Fixed erratic fullscreen scrolling when positioned at an earlier message, including jump-to-bottom getting stuck mid-transcript
• Fixed background sessions failing to open after 45 seconds when Claude Code's starting directory had been deleted, the machine had slept, or the host is slow to start processes
• Fixed background sessions failing to open with "Couldn't start the background service … EACCES" when another Claude Code process was re-installing the npm package at that moment
• Fixed markdown rendering being disabled for a whole message when its first 500 characters contained no markdown, and for +/N) lists and setext headings
• Fixed MCP tool calls interrupted by an incoming message in headless/remote sessions being reported to the model as "completed with no output" instead of an explicit interrupted error
• Fixed MCP tool arguments being sent as JSON strings when the parameter's schema is empty ({}), instead of their real type
• Fixed a command interrupted mid-run showing as "Ran 1 shell command" with no sign it was cut
• Fixed pressing ← or running /background during a dynamic workflow restarting its finished subagents; it now asks first and says how many subagents would restart
• Fixed opening a just-started session in claude agents while its worker was still booting (common on Windows) stopping it with "was stopped while the respawn was in flight"
• Fixed claude agents listing a backgrounded named session twice; backgrounding the same conversation again now numbers the new row (e.g. my-session (2))
• Fixed the background retention sweep removing git worktrees under .claude/worktrees/ that you created yourself when an old background-session record pointed at them
• Fixed auto mode tool calls being denied as "temporarily unavailable" on very large sessions by scaling the safety-check deadline with prompt size
• Fixed the plugin cache creating duplicate SHA-named directories for the same plugin
• Fixed plugin skills whose frontmatter name already includes the <plugin>: prefix showing it doubled in the slash menu (e.g. /plugin:plugin:skill)
• Fixed claude plugin update failing for an installed plugin given its bare name (only the fully-qualified name worked)
• Fixed plugin installation failing when plugin.json was saved with a UTF-8 byte-order mark (BOM)
• Fixed /reload-plugins reporting 0 skills for plugins that define skills under skills/*/SKILL.md
• Fixed hook error messages showing a literal ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT} instead of the resolved plugin path
• Fixed /rename replacing the theme's prompt border color (including a custom theme's promptBorder) with the default cyan; the border now keeps your theme's color unless you pick one with /color
• Fixed custom theme diff colors (diffAdded/diffRemoved and their dimmed variants) being ignored in diffs and the /theme preview
• Fixed a keybindings.json binding with an unknown action name silently deadening that key; it is now skipped so the default binding keeps working, and a warning is logged under --debug
• Fixed /stats activity heatmap showing each day's activity one cell off (Sunday's count under Monday) in timezones east of UTC
• Fixed /fork from an already-forked or backgrounded session starting the new session with an empty conversation
• Fixed prompts beginning with /-- (e.g. Lean doc comments) being rejected as an unknown slash command instead of being sent to Claude
• Fixed the @ file picker staying open after the typed text stopped matching a real path
• Fixed the status line's cost and duration resetting to zero after navigating to the agents view and back
• Fixed fullscreen mode moving keyboard focus onto the control under the pointer when you clicked the terminal window only to bring it back into focus
• Fixed path completion failing when the completion token or working directory contained a null byte
• Windows/macOS: Fixed headless sessions not cleaning up stale entries in ~/.claude/sessions left by sessions that exited uncleanly
• Fixed the UI stopping with a render error on the first tool call when a third-party Anthropic-compatible endpoint (ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL) streams a tool_use block without an id
• Fixed the Write tool reporting "Out of memory" or freezing for a long time after overwriting a very large existing file, even though the file had been written
• Fixed claude plugin install <name> exiting silently (or hanging in a terminal) instead of reporting an error when ~/.claude/plugins/known_marketplaces.json is empty or corrupted
• Fixed resumed sessions failing every turn with a 400 when the saved history contains tool blocks the Anthropic API does not accept (typically written by a third-party API proxy)
• Fixed curl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.sh | bash failing with "Raw mode is not supported" for some Team/Enterprise users with server-managed settings
• Fixed sessions that ended in plan mode resuming outside plan mode in the VS Code extension, and in claude -p --continue/--resume with a permission prompt tool, when no permission mode was set
• Fixed the Notification hook not firing while the sandbox "Network request outside of sandbox" permission prompt is waiting
• Fixed Bash permission checks to always require approval for malformed commands with a dangling && or || operator
• Fixed --strict-mcp-config sessions prompting to approve .mcp.json servers they would never load, which left background sessions waiting at startup
• Fixed telemetry and metrics requests to Anthropic carrying the API key configured for a third-party gateway (ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL); a credential is now only sent to its own host
• Fixed a visible API error on the first prompt after idle when apiKeyHelper returns short-lived JWTs: an expired cached token is now refreshed before sending, and 401/403 auth errors retry quietly
• Fixed memory growing with session length in the fullscreen and Ctrl+O transcript views: each rendered message row no longer retains a full copy of the transcript-wide tool lookups
• Fixed /ultrareview runs and cloud sessions launched at the same time from one repository (e.g. from several worktrees) sometimes starting with another launch's uncommitted changes
• Fixed the task progress count (e.g. 3/5) shown for background cloud sessions such as /autofix-pr occasionally missing a task
• Fixed Remote Control sessions keeping their placeholder name in claude.ai and the Claude app until the second prompt; the auto-generated title now appears after the first prompt
• Fixed MCP tools marked requiresUserInteraction still offering "Yes, and don't ask again" in their permission prompt; the option wrote an allow rule the tool then ignored
• Fixed the self-hosted runner ending its live sessions or exiting when a work-poll response is malformed (e.g. an intercepting proxy's HTML page); it now retries the poll
• Improved /cd: the new directory's project settings, hooks, .mcp.json servers (behind the usual approval prompt), skills, and agents now take effect right after the move instead of on --resume
• Improved Bash tool latency on bash shells by replaying snapshot functions without a base64 subshell per function
• Improved subagent results: a subagent that stops at its maxTurns limit now returns its output marked as partial, with a hint to continue it via SendMessage, instead of appearing finished
• Improved non-interactive sessions (-p, SDK, cloud sessions) to automatically continue a response cut off mid-stream by a server error, connection loss, or stall instead of ending with an error
• Improved attribution of usage telemetry to your organization for workload identity federation sessions, events sent while apiKeyHelper runs at startup, and after a login token expired while idle
• Changed /code-review so Claude can also start it on its own on Bedrock, Vertex AI, and Foundry, through the Claude apps gateway, and when telemetry or non-essential traffic is disabled
• /goal: Changed idle sessions to start at most three check-ins on long-running background work per goal; your next message allows three more
• Changed claude install and claude update to defer a pending managed-settings consent prompt to the next interactive session instead of prompting mid-command
• Changed OpenTelemetry plugin events for plugins synced from claude.ai: plugin_id_hash now reflects the plugin's real marketplace, and enabled_via is admin-install for admin-installed plugins
• Fixed the command sandbox's filesystem configuration not respecting --setting-sources