Claude Code v2.1.141: New Environment Variables, Hooks Enhancement, and Bug Fixes

Anthropic shipped Claude Code v2.1.141 with a batch of quality-of-life improvements, new environment variables, and a long list of bug fixes. Here's what's relevant for developers running Claude Code in headless CI, multi-workspace setups, or with custom plugins.
New Environment Variables
CLAUDE_CODE_PLUGIN_PREFER_HTTPS — when set, GitHub plugin sources are cloned over HTTPS instead of SSH. Useful for environments without a configured SSH key.
ANTHROPIC_WORKSPACE_ID — scopes the minted token from workload identity federation to a specific workspace. Required when your federation rule covers multiple workspaces.
Hooks: Desktop Notifications Without a Terminal
Hooks now support a terminalSequence field in JSON output. This lets hooks emit desktop notifications, window title changes, and terminal bell sequences even when no controlling terminal is attached. Useful for long-running background agents in CI or daemon mode.
Agent & Session Improvements
- New
claude agents --cwd <path>flag scopes the session list to a specific directory. - Background agents launched via
/bgor←←now preserve the current permission mode instead of resetting to defaults. - Agents that finish work but leave a background shell running now appear under Completed, not Working.
- Feedback (
/feedback) can include recent sessions (last 24 hours or 7 days) for multi-session issues.
Rewind Menu: Summarize Up to Here
A new option Summarize up to here lets you compress earlier conversation context while keeping recent turns intact — helpful for long sessions without losing recent context.
Miscellaneous Changes
- Spinner now warms to amber after 10 seconds of thinking, so you know Claude hasn't frozen.
- Plugin menu navigation improved:
→/Tab cycles tabs,↑moves to tab strip, headers and search box are clickable in fullscreen. - Auto mode permission dialog now explains when a
permissions.askrule triggered it. - File-edit permission prompts now show the view diff in your IDE option again when an IDE is connected.
Bug Fixes (Highlights)
- Fixed background side-queries sending unavailable Haiku model ID on Bedrock/Vertex/Foundry/gateway — now falls back to the main-loop model.
- Fixed
claude daemon statusand/doctoron Windows when the daemon pipe key file is locked. - Fixed
/modelchanges in one session affecting autocompact threshold in other sessions. - Fixed markdown tables with cell wrapping falling back to key-value layout (regression in 2.1.136).
- Fixed cancelled prompts being dropped from Up-arrow history.
- Fixed
Ctrl+Cnot interrupting a running turn in vim INSERT/VISUAL mode. - Fixed
chat:submitkeybindings (meta+enter, ctrl+enter) not working when Enter is rebound tochat:newline. - Fixed
light-ansitheme using invisible white for diff context lines on light backgrounds. - Fixed error overlay dumping minified bundle source that hid the original error message.
📖 Read the full source: GitHub Claude-Code
👀 See Also

Developer shares solution for Claude AI ignoring rules beyond 50-count threshold
A developer reports Claude Code started silently dropping rules once their shared rule set exceeded approximately 50 items, particularly during frontend-heavy tasks. They built a hook that scans prompts and loads only 2-3 relevant rules based on keyword matching.

Claude Code protocol file reduces repetitive questioning
A developer created a single .md file for ~/.claude/rules/ that infers task type and risk from the first message, eliminating Claude Code's typical three-question sequence before starting work.

AGI in md: 11 Cognitive Compression Levels for Claude System Prompts
A GitHub repository documents 11 levels of cognitive compression that can be encoded in Claude system prompts, with Level 8 shifting from analysis to construction and improving Haiku's performance from 0/3 to 4/4. The project includes 28 prompts, 299 raw outputs, and full experiment logs across 19 domains.

Developer shares hybrid AI coding workflow: Claude for planning, local models for execution
A developer built a pipeline using Claude 3.5 Sonnet for task planning and local Qwen2.5-Coder models via Ollama for code generation, achieving 85% token reduction compared to using Claude alone.