The v2.1.198 update for Claude Code introduces general availability for Claude in Chrome and enhances background agent capabilities with new notification hooks and automated pull request workflows.

  • Claude in Chrome is now generally available.
  • Background agents launched from `claude agents` can now commit, push, and open a draft PR upon completion.
  • Added `/dataviz` skill for chart design guidance with a color-palette validator.
  • Gateway supports Claude Platform on AWS as an upstream provider with improved failover handling.
  • The built-in Explore agent inherits the main session's model (capped at opus) instead of using haiku.
  • Subagents and context compaction now inherit the session's extended thinking configuration.
  • Fixed network drop aborts by implementing retry with backoff for transient errors.
  • Fixed background tasks getting stuck on "Running" in web, desktop, and VS Code panels.
  • Improved focus mode activity summaries and syntax highlighting accuracy via highlight.js 11 upgrade.

This release improves reliability for background agents and network stability while expanding integration options for AWS users.