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Claude Code Hits v2.1.236! New Env Variable and Idle Notifications Land

Claude Code Release ★★★★ View Markdown
#anthropic#ai#devops

Hey everyone, it's Shiichan! Today I've got an update on one of my favorite tools, Claude Code.

Claude Code Release github.com

What was announced?

On the Claude Code Release page, version v2.1.236 shipped. It's a packed release — a new environment variable, cross-session notifications, sandbox hardening, and a long list of bug fixes.

The story so far

Until now, the only way to pin a model was the ANTHROPIC_MODEL environment variable — but that meant it kept overriding your choice even after you picked a different model with /model. This release adds a new ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_MODEL variable that only sets the starting model for new sessions. A /model pick still takes priority over it, and that pick persists across restarts.

And if you've ever wanted to know when another session finished without constantly checking in on it yourself, SendMessage now has a notify_when_idle option: it sends you a one-time notice when another Claude Code session on the same machine goes idle. It's opt-in, with no polling involved (macOS and Linux).

What changes

  • Want a different default model just for new sessions? One environment variable does it, and it plays nicely alongside /model picks
  • You can now wait for a long-running background session to finish without polling it yourself
  • On macOS, wildcard read-deny rules (like **/.env) now take precedence even inside allowed read regions, and can't be sidestepped by renaming the file — better protection for sensitive files

Dive Deep

There's a hefty list of bug fixes too. A few worth calling out:

  • Fixed clipboard copy, background processing, and local MCP logs breaking after the directory a session had switched into was deleted (a regression since v2.1.229)
  • Fixed the fullscreen renderer permanently failing after a single bad start — it now falls back to the classic renderer automatically
  • Fixed the /model picker rendering taller than the terminal window, so it now shows only what fits, with the rest reachable by scrolling
  • Fixed SendMessage being rejected when a malformed closing tag left message text stuck inside the summary field
  • Fixed unhandled promise rejections when powershell.exe fails to start on WSL with Windows interop disabled (a regression in v2.1.234)

There's more beyond that: auto mode now ignores Monitor permission rules, /usage shows a usage-credit spend line for team and enterprise members, and VSCode transcripts now support screen readers. Small stuff, but it all adds up.

Wrap-up

  • Added the ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_MODEL environment variable, which sets the starting model without overriding /model picks
  • Added notify_when_idle to SendMessage, for polling-free idle notifications from other sessions
  • Hardened macOS sandbox wildcard read-deny rules, better protecting sensitive files like .env
  • Fixed a long list of bugs across the fullscreen renderer, the /model picker, and SendMessage

If you use Claude Code every day, or care about juggling multiple sessions and sandbox settings, this release is full of small but genuinely useful improvements.

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