TL;DR

• Background agents in worktrees now auto-ship. They commit, push, and open a draft PR when they finish code work, instead of pausing to ask (more below).
• Explore agent quality jump. The built-in Explore agent now runs on your session's model (capped at Opus) instead of Haiku (more below).
• New hook events for background agents. Sessions that need input or finish now fire the Notification hook with agent_needs_input and agent_completed, so you can wire up alerts.
• /dataviz skill added. New built-in skill for chart and dashboard design guidance, including a runnable color-palette validator.
• /agents wizard is gone. Create or manage subagents by asking Claude directly, or edit .claude/agents/ files.

New in 2.1.198

2.1.198 (July 2, 2026)

• Claude in Chrome is now generally available
• Added background agent notifications in claude agents: sessions that need input or finish now fire the Notification hook (agent_needs_input / agent_completed)
• Added /dataviz skill for chart and dashboard design guidance with a runnable color-palette validator
• Gateway: added Claude Platform on AWS (anthropicAws) as an upstream provider; model-not-found responses now advance the failover chain
• Background agents launched from claude agents now commit, push, and open a draft PR when they finish code work in a worktree, instead of stopping to ask
• The built-in Explore agent now inherits the main session's model (capped at opus) instead of running on haiku
• Subagents and context compaction now inherit the session's extended thinking configuration, improving output quality on delegated tasks
• Fixed brief network drops mid-response aborting the turn: transient errors like ECONNRESET now retry with backoff instead of failing
• Fixed excessive background classifier requests when sandboxed processes repeatedly accessed the same network host
• Fixed background tasks in web, desktop, and VS Code task panels getting stuck on "Running" after they finish or after resuming a session
• Fixed agent teams: a teammate that dies on an API error now reports "failed" to the lead, and messaging a stuck teammate wakes it to retry immediately
• Fixed the /diff panel not refreshing when you switch branches or commit outside the session
• Fixed markdown tables overflowing and wrapping their right border when rendered in fullscreen mode
• Fixed Claude Platform on AWS and Mantle sessions dead-ending with "Please run /login" when the STS token expires: awsAuthRefresh now runs automatically
• Fixed "no route to host" for local-network hosts in macOS background agent sessions by declaring Local Network entitlements
• Fixed /desktop failing with "Cannot determine working directory" after entering and exiting a worktree
• Fixed background agents repeatedly showing "Reconnecting..." every ~52 seconds on macOS while the agents view was open
• Fixed pressing left-arrow inside claude attach <id> exiting to the shell instead of opening the agent view
• Fixed claude --bg silently creating an unattachable session when combined with --print/-p; the conflicting flags are now rejected up front
• Fixed the workflow progress view dropping the earliest agents from the list while the phase counter stayed correct in SDK and desktop-app sessions
• Fixed .claude/rules/ conditional rules not loading when the target file is reached via a symlinked path
• Fixed Cmd+click not opening URLs in fullscreen mode in Warp on macOS
• Fixed double-click word selection in fullscreen mode to select the entire URL including the scheme
• Fixed plan mode not auto-allowing read-only tool calls when a session starts in plan mode
• Fixed /branch deriving its default fork name from the compaction summary instead of the first real prompt
• Improved focus mode: subagents launched in a turn now appear in its activity summary, and completed background notifications fold into a single count
• Improved syntax highlighting accuracy in code blocks, diffs, and file previews by upgrading to highlight.js 11
• Keyboard shortcut hints now show opt/cmd instead of alt/super when connected from a Mac over SSH
• Improved API retry UX: the error reason is now shown after the second attempt, and a status page link replaces the spinner tip when the API is overloaded
• /login now opens the sign-in dialog from the claude agents view instead of saying it isn't available
• Subagents now treat messages from the agent that launched them as normal task direction; an agent's message is still never treated as the user's approval
• Removed the /agents wizard; ask Claude to create or manage subagents, or edit .claude/agents/ directly

Notes