Claude Code pushed version 2.1.221 this morning with three headlining additions: a Focus view toggle for VS Code that tames agent noise in the editor, a sandbox credential masking mode for Linux and WSL environments, and a new prompt-audit subcommand for surfacing prompts that were tuned for older model behavior. Alongside these, the release ships a round of permission and session bug fixes that close real attack surface on Bash and PowerShell integrations.

VS Code Focus View: Less Noise, More Signal

If you’ve been using Claude Code inside VS Code, you know the problem: tool activity can flood the chat panel during long-running agent sessions. Every file read, every grep, every web fetch generates a visible turn — useful during debugging, exhausting during routine work.

The new Focus view (Ctrl+Alt+F, or the “Claude Code: Toggle Focus view” command in the command palette) collapses all that detail behind a per-turn summary. You still get a live indicator showing which tool is currently running, but the individual steps are tucked into an expandable section. Flip it off to go back to full verbose mode at any time.

This is a quality-of-life win for developers who run Claude Code in the background while they’re editing elsewhere. The channel still captures everything — you’re just not forced to scroll through it.

Sandbox Credential Masking on Linux and WSL

The bigger news for security-conscious deployments is mode: "mask" on sandbox credential files. Here’s how it works:

  • You configure a sandbox credential file with mode: "mask" in your Claude Code config
  • Sandboxed commands receive a sentinel copy of the file — either the whole file or just the spans you specify via an extract regex
  • When those commands write output or make egress calls, the sandbox proxy substitutes the real credential value back in
  • On macOS, file masking gracefully falls back to deny if the masking infrastructure isn’t available

This matters for agentic workflows running in CI or shared Linux boxes where you want Claude Code to have access to services without exposing raw credentials in process output, logs, or subshell environments. The sentinel-file design means the credential is never written plaintext into the environment that Claude Code’s sandboxed tools operate in.

WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) gets the same treatment as native Linux — the EROFS-tolerant permission handling introduced in related patches also ensures that credential file state operations don’t fail on read-only overlay filesystems common in WSL configurations.

Prompt Audit Subcommand

The prompt-audit subcommand joins the claude-api skill and is aimed at a specific pain point: prompts and tool descriptions that were written for older Claude model behavior and are now misfiring or producing unexpected results.

Running the auditor scans your prompts and tool descriptions for patterns known to cause issues with current model versions — things like overly prescriptive formatting instructions, legacy tool-call syntax, or directive patterns that have been superseded. It doesn’t automatically rewrite anything; it flags and explains.

This is especially useful for teams that built integrations against Claude 3.x or early 4.x and have been wondering why certain behaviors drifted after model upgrades. The auditor surfaces the proximate causes.

Security Fixes Worth Noting

Two security-adjacent bug fixes round out the release:

Bash zsh bypass closed. A permission-check bypass was found where zsh could silently execute hidden commands inside [[ ]] regex conditionals without triggering the normal permission prompt. Affected commands now properly route through the approval flow. This is a meaningful fix for anyone running Claude Code in agentic or auto-approve modes.

PowerShell path quoting fixed on Windows. Paths containing quote characters were causing permission checks to mishandle on Windows — the check would pass when it shouldn’t, or fail with a confusing error. Such paths now correctly trigger an approval prompt.

Both fixes tighten the boundary between what Claude Code can do without user consent and what it can’t.

Other Fixes

  • The thinking toggle now persists across a session — disabling it mid-session no longer silently reverts on subsequent turns
  • MCP servers from --mcp-config now connect before the first turn in print mode (-p), fixing a case where the model emitted tool calls as literal text
  • Disabling an MCP server mid-connect no longer silently reverts to connected state
  • @-mentioned files dropped when pressing Esc to retract and resubmit a prompt are now correctly re-included
  • A crash when preparing API requests for SDK MCP tools has been fixed
  • claude plugin validate now warns when a plugin or marketplace name would be rejected by Claude Desktop’s managed marketplace sync

Upgrading

Run claude update (or your package manager equivalent) to pull v2.1.221. The changelog is published at code.claude.com/docs/en/changelog and maintained on GitHub.

Sources

  1. Claude Code official changelog (code.claude.com)
  2. CHANGELOG.md on GitHub — anthropics/claude-code

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