v2.1.142

Source: Anthropic Claude Code Date: 2026-05-14 URL: https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/releases/tag/v2.1.142

Summary

Claude Code v2.1.142 ships a batch of agent-dispatch infrastructure improvements alongside a notable default model bump: Fast Mode now runs Opus 4.7 instead of 4.6. New claude agents flags (--add-dir, --settings, --mcp-config, --plugin-dir, --permission-mode, --model, --effort) add per-session configurability to dispatched background agents. Plugin improvements include surfacing root-level SKILL.md files as skills and exposing LSP server details in the plugin details pane. A significant set of bug fixes addresses daemon stability (macOS sleep/wake crashes, clean binary upgrade exits), MCP tool timeout enforcement on remote HTTP/SSE servers, and several background-agent reliability issues.

Implications

This is primarily a Claude Code platform maturity signal — the surface area of the agent-dispatch system is expanding with each release, and the bug fixes are increasingly about production reliability rather than feature gaps.

• Fast Mode → Opus 4.7 by default. This is a quiet but meaningful change: the “fast” path now runs a more capable model. The override flag (CLAUDE_CODE_OPUS_4_6_FAST_MODE_OVERRIDE=1) signals this is a deliberate policy shift, not an accidental bump.
• --mcp-config and --plugin-dir on dispatched agents. Background agents can now be launched with distinct MCP server sets and plugin directories per session. This is the infrastructure needed for specialized agent roles — a code-review agent with different tools than a docs agent, for example.
• MCP timeout fix is operationally significant. Remote HTTP/SSE MCP servers were silently capped at 60s regardless of MCP_TOOL_TIMEOUT. Long-running tool calls in production agent loops were failing for infrastructure reasons, not model reasons. Fixed.
• Watch: Whether the --effort flag on dispatched agents becomes the standard interface for trading off cost versus quality in background work — that would be the first formal cost-control knob on the dispatch layer.