What's new in Claude Code v2.1.129

Claude Code v2.1.129 fixes the 1-hour prompt cache silent downgrade, restores Bash allow-rules for in-project paths, and adds --plugin-url for session-scoped plugin testing — plus new env vars for terminal output, package-manager auto-update, and gateway-model-discovery opt-in.

1-hour prompt cache TTL silent downgrade fixed

Why: Users opting into 1h cache TTL were silently being downgraded to 5min, defeating the cost optimization they paid for.

What: Fixed 1-hour prompt cache TTL being silently downgraded to 5 minutes.

How: No action — verify cache hit logs show 1h TTL on next run.

Bash(mkdir *), Bash(touch *) allow rules now match in-project paths

Why: Allow rules for safe basic commands weren't matching in-project paths, forcing approval prompts for benign operations.

What: Bash(mkdir *), Bash(touch *) and similar allow rules now match in-project paths.

How: No config change — existing rules in permissions.allow start working as intended.

--plugin-url for session-scoped plugin .zip loading

Why: Quick-testing a plugin used to mean cloning the repo or hosting a marketplace; pointing at a hosted .zip is faster.

What: New --plugin-url flag fetches a plugin .zip from any URL and loads it for the current session only.

How: claude --plugin-url https://example.com/my-plugin.zip

Plugin manifest themes/monitors move under "experimental"

Why: These were always experimental; nesting under experimental makes their stability status explicit in the manifest.

What: themes and monitors should now be declared under "experimental": { ... }. Top-level still works but claude plugin validate warns.

How: Move to "experimental": { "themes": [...], "monitors": [...] } in plugin.json.

CLAUDE_CODE_FORCE_SYNC_OUTPUT for terminals auto-detection misses

Why: Some terminals like Emacs eat support synchronized output but aren't auto-detected, causing visual flicker.

What: Forces synchronized output on regardless of terminal capability detection.

How: CLAUDE_CODE_FORCE_SYNC_OUTPUT=1 claude

CLAUDE_CODE_PACKAGE_MANAGER_AUTO_UPDATE for Homebrew and WinGet

Why: Users on Homebrew or WinGet installs forget to run upgrades; auto-update keeps them current without ceremony.

What: When set, Claude Code runs the package manager's upgrade command in the background and prompts to restart.

How: export CLAUDE_CODE_PACKAGE_MANAGER_AUTO_UPDATE=1 in shell env.

Ctrl+R history picker defaults back to all projects

Why: 2.1.124 narrowed the picker to current project only; users wanted the old all-projects search restored.

What: Ctrl+R now searches prompts across all projects, matching pre-2.1.124 behavior.

How: Press Ctrl+S after opening to narrow to current project or session.

Gateway /v1/models discovery now opt-in

Why: Automatic gateway model discovery in 2.1.126–2.1.128 caused unexpected requests for some third-party deployments.

What: Gateway /v1/models discovery for the /model picker is now opt-in via env var.

How: CLAUDE_CODE_ENABLE_GATEWAY_MODEL_DISCOVERY=1 to re-enable.

skillOverrides setting now actually works

Why: The setting was registered but had no effect — silent noise in settings.json until now.

What: off hides the skill from model and /, user-invocable-only hides from model only, name-only collapses description.

How: "skillOverrides": { "skill-name": "off|user-invocable-only|name-only" } in settings.json.

/context no longer dumps ASCII visualization into conversation

Why: /context was rendering its ASCII grid into the conversation transcript, wasting ~1.6k tokens per call.

What: Visualization grid is no longer included in the model's view of the conversation.

How: No action required — token waste disappears automatically.

OTel pull_request.count now includes MCP-created PRs

Why: PRs created via MCP tools weren't counted, undercounting team productivity metrics for OTel-instrumented orgs.

What: claude_code.pull_request.count metric now counts PRs/MRs created via MCP tools, not just shell commands.

How: No config change — automatic when OTel telemetry is enabled.

Hosts: Alex Chen & Sarah Kim · Generated from the official Claude Code CHANGELOG.

Full changelog: github.com/anthropics/claude-code/CHANGELOG.md

Claude Code docs: docs.claude.com/en/docs/claude-code

• (00:00) - 1-hour prompt cache TTL silent downgrade fixed