The bottom line: Subagents run by default in the background while Claude continues working and receives notification upon completion; Claude in Chrome is now generally available.
Claude Code reaches version 2.1.198 with background agents as default behavior and general availability of Claude in Chrome. The release includes 30 improvements and bug fixes for agent workflows and IDE integration.
Core features of v2.1.198: Subagents now perform asynchronous execution by default — Claude continues its work while delegated tasks run, and automatically receives a notification upon completion. This functionality was previously in a gradual rollout phase. Claude in Chrome is now available as a generally available product.
Agent infrastructure: Background agents launched by Claude Agents execute code work directly, commit, push, and automatically open a draft pull request instead of stopping and waiting for confirmation. New notification hooks (agent_needs_input, agent_completed) enable notifications when input is needed or upon completion. The built-in Explore agent now inherits the model of the main session (up to Opus instead of Haiku), and subagents and context compaction adopt the extended thinking configuration of the session for better output quality.
Platform and network improvements: The gateway integrates Claude Platform on AWS (anthropicAws) as an additional upstream provider with improved failover; transient network errors such as ECONNRESET trigger automatic retries with backoff instead of immediate failure. AWS STS token expiration is automatically handled by awsAuthRefresh. A new /dataviz skill for chart and dashboard design has been added, including an executable color palette validator.
Bug fixes and UX improvements: Among the 25 bug fixes are resolved issues with background tasks remaining stuck in “Running” status after completion, failed agent team communication on API errors, and macOS-specific network entitlement gaps. Syntax highlighting has been improved through an upgrade to highlight.js 11. The /agents wizard has been removed; agent management now occurs through direct Claude requests or editing the .claude/agents/ file structure.
Source: github.com · Published 3 July 2026
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