v2.1.128 Claude Code Release Notes

May 4, 2026

Claude's Analysisby Sonnet 4.6

Massive stability pass — 24 fixes address crash loops on large stdin, MCP argument corruption, plugin update detection, sub-agent token waste, and broken session/terminal state.

Changes

Total Changes (vs Average)

3.9×

Version Type

Patch

Release Focus

Bug Fixes

Days Since Prior Release

Release # This Month

#2 of 2

Bug Fix Ratio

65%

Post-Release Edits

—

Change Category

Ecosystem Impact

MCP and Plugins / Skills have appeared in 8 and 7 of the last 10 releases respectively — extensibility infrastructure has been the most consistent focus area of the April–May development cycle, with Terminals also surfacing in 6 of 10.

Key Themes

14Core CLI Stability Sweep|6MCP & Subprocess Hardening|7Plugin & Sub-agent Efficiency|4Terminal Rendering & Compatibility|4Model & Provider Routing Fixes

May Help If You've Noticed

claude -p crashes when you pipe in a large file (over 10 MB) via stdin

Fixed24 changes

•Fixed focus mode briefly dimming the previous response when submitting a new prompt
•Fixed stray "4;0;" desktop notification on every /exit in Kitty and other terminals that interpret OSC 9 as a notification
•Fixed Remote Control showing an empty "Opening your options…" message on rate limit instead of actionable upsell options
•Fixed drag-and-drop image upload hanging on "Pasting text…" when the image read fails
•Fixed crash loop when piping very large input (>10 MB) to claude -p via stdin
•Fixed long URLs not being individually clickable on every wrapped row in fullscreen mode
•Fixed /plugin Components panel showing "Marketplace 'inline' not found" for plugins loaded via --plugin-dir
•Fixed MCP tool results dropping images when the server returns both structured content and content blocks
•Fixed fenced code blocks inside list items carrying leading whitespace into the clipboard on copy-paste
•Fixed tab navigation in /config stranding focus — the tab header now stays focused so arrows and Esc keep working
•Fixed markdown link labels being lost on terminals without OSC 8 hyperlink support — links now render as label (url) instead of just the URL
•Fixed sessions on 1M-context models with a smaller autocompact window being falsely blocked with "Prompt is too long" before reaching the actual API limit
•Fixed banner showing "with X effort" on models that don't support effort
•Fixed /fast on 3P providers fuzzy-matching to an unrelated skill instead of showing "not available"
•Fixed Bedrock default model resolving to global.* instead of the region-appropriate prefix
•Fixed vim mode: Space in NORMAL mode now moves the cursor right, matching standard vi/vim behavior
•Fixed terminal progress indicator (OSC 9;4) flickering off between tool calls — stays visible across the full turn
•Fixed /rename without args failing on resumed sessions whose last entry is a compact boundary
•Fixed stale "remote-control is active" status lines from prior sessions appearing after --resume/--continue
•Fixed stale installed_plugins.json entries pointing at deleted cache directories polluting PATH
•Fixed MCP stdio servers receiving corrupted arguments when CLAUDE_CODE_SHELL_PREFIX is set and an argument contains spaces or shell metacharacters
•Fixed sub-agent progress summaries missing the prompt cache (~3× cache_creation reduction)
•Fixed /plugin update never detecting new versions of npm-sourced plugins
•Fixed sub-agent summaries firing repeatedly while a sub-agent's transcript is static, capping worst-case token cost on idle sub-agents

Changed1 change

•Updated /model picker: collapsed duplicate Opus 4.7 entries, and current Opus now shows as "Opus" instead of "Opus 4.7"

Removed4 changes

•Subprocesses (Bash, hooks, MCP, LSP) no longer inherit OTEL_* environment variables, so OTEL-instrumented apps run via the Bash tool no longer pick up the CLI's own OTLP endpoint
•Reconnecting MCP servers no longer flood the conversation with full tool-name lists on every reconnect — re-announced tools are summarized by server prefix
•EnterWorktree now creates the new branch from local HEAD as documented, instead of origin/<default-branch> — unpushed commits are no longer dropped
•Fixed parallel shell tool calls: a failing read-only command (grep, git diff, ls) no longer cancels sibling calls

Other8 changes

•Bare /color (no args) now picks a random session color
•/mcp now shows the tool count for connected servers and flags servers that connected with 0 tools
•--plugin-dir now accepts .zip plugin archives in addition to directories
•--channels now works with console (API key) authentication — console orgs with managed settings must set channelsEnabled: true to enable
•MCP: workspace is now a reserved server name — existing servers with that name will be skipped with a warning
•SDK hosts now receive a persistent localSettings suggestion for Bash permission prompts, so "Always allow" writes to .claude/settings.local.json
•Auto mode: when the classifier can't evaluate an action, the error now includes a hint (retry, /compact, or run with --debug)
•Headless --output-format stream-json: init.plugin_errors now includes --plugin-dir load failures in addition to dependency demotions

Fixed24 changes

•Fixed focus mode briefly dimming the previous response when submitting a new prompt

•Fixed stray "4;0;" desktop notification on every /exit in Kitty and other terminals that interpret OSC 9 as a notification

•Fixed Remote Control showing an empty "Opening your options…" message on rate limit instead of actionable upsell options

•Fixed drag-and-drop image upload hanging on "Pasting text…" when the image read fails

•Fixed crash loop when piping very large input (>10 MB) to claude -p via stdin

•Fixed long URLs not being individually clickable on every wrapped row in fullscreen mode

•Fixed /plugin Components panel showing "Marketplace 'inline' not found" for plugins loaded via --plugin-dir

•Fixed MCP tool results dropping images when the server returns both structured content and content blocks

•Fixed fenced code blocks inside list items carrying leading whitespace into the clipboard on copy-paste

•Fixed tab navigation in /config stranding focus — the tab header now stays focused so arrows and Esc keep working

•Fixed markdown link labels being lost on terminals without OSC 8 hyperlink support — links now render as label (url) instead of just the URL

•Fixed sessions on 1M-context models with a smaller autocompact window being falsely blocked with "Prompt is too long" before reaching the actual API limit

•Fixed banner showing "with X effort" on models that don't support effort

•Fixed /fast on 3P providers fuzzy-matching to an unrelated skill instead of showing "not available"

•Fixed Bedrock default model resolving to global.* instead of the region-appropriate prefix

•Fixed vim mode: Space in NORMAL mode now moves the cursor right, matching standard vi/vim behavior

•Fixed terminal progress indicator (OSC 9;4) flickering off between tool calls — stays visible across the full turn

•Fixed /rename without args failing on resumed sessions whose last entry is a compact boundary

•Fixed stale "remote-control is active" status lines from prior sessions appearing after --resume/--continue

•Fixed stale installed_plugins.json entries pointing at deleted cache directories polluting PATH

•Fixed MCP stdio servers receiving corrupted arguments when CLAUDE_CODE_SHELL_PREFIX is set and an argument contains spaces or shell metacharacters

•Fixed sub-agent progress summaries missing the prompt cache (~3× cache_creation reduction)

•Fixed /plugin update never detecting new versions of npm-sourced plugins

•Fixed sub-agent summaries firing repeatedly while a sub-agent's transcript is static, capping worst-case token cost on idle sub-agents

Removed4 changes

•Subprocesses (Bash, hooks, MCP, LSP) no longer inherit OTEL_* environment variables, so OTEL-instrumented apps run via the Bash tool no longer pick up the CLI's own OTLP endpoint

•Reconnecting MCP servers no longer flood the conversation with full tool-name lists on every reconnect — re-announced tools are summarized by server prefix

•EnterWorktree now creates the new branch from local HEAD as documented, instead of origin/<default-branch> — unpushed commits are no longer dropped

•Fixed parallel shell tool calls: a failing read-only command (grep, git diff, ls) no longer cancels sibling calls

Other8 changes

•Bare /color (no args) now picks a random session color

•/mcp now shows the tool count for connected servers and flags servers that connected with 0 tools

•--plugin-dir now accepts .zip plugin archives in addition to directories

•--channels now works with console (API key) authentication — console orgs with managed settings must set channelsEnabled: true to enable

•MCP: workspace is now a reserved server name — existing servers with that name will be skipped with a warning

•SDK hosts now receive a persistent localSettings suggestion for Bash permission prompts, so "Always allow" writes to .claude/settings.local.json

•Auto mode: when the classifier can't evaluate an action, the error now includes a hint (retry, /compact, or run with --debug)

•Headless --output-format stream-json: init.plugin_errors now includes --plugin-dir load failures in addition to dependency demotions

v2.1.128 Claude Code Release Notes

Changes in Claude Code v2.1.128

Fixed24 changes

Changed1 change

Removed4 changes

Other8 changes

v2.1.128 Claude Code Release Notes

Changes in Claude Code v2.1.128

Fixed24 changes

Changed1 change

Removed4 changes

Other8 changes