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Claude Code Week 18 Release Digest (April 27 – May 1, 2026)

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Source: Anthropic official docs — Week 18 digest Type: Product Feature Digest Product: Claude Code Releases: v2.1.120 – v2.1.126 · April 27 – May 1, 2026

The Week 18 digest delivers four features focused on reaching Claude Code from locked-down or remote environments: OAuth login without a browser callback (WSL2/SSH/containers), claude project purge for clean state management, PR-URL-based session resumption, and native Windows operation without Git Bash.

Four headline features

Sign in without a browser callback (v2.1.126)

claude auth login now accepts the OAuth code pasted directly into the terminal when the browser callback cannot reach localhost. Covers WSL2, SSH sessions, and containers where redirect to a local port fails. Same release also fixes login timeouts on slow or proxied connections and in IPv6-only devcontainers.

claude auth login
# Follow prompts, paste the code from the browser at the prompt

claude project purge (v2.1.126)

Delete all local Claude Code state for a project: transcripts, task lists, file-edit history, prompt history, and the project’s entry in ~/.claude.json. The complement to claude project create.

claude project purge --dry-run   # Preview what would be removed
claude project purge              # Delete

Flags: --dry-run to preview, -y/--yes to skip confirmation, -i/--interactive to pick from a list, --all for every project at once.

Resume by PR URL (v2.1.122)

When you create a pull request, Claude Code links it to the session that produced it. Paste the PR URL into /resume picker — the list filters instantly to the matching session. Works with GitHub, GitHub Enterprise, GitLab, and Bitbucket.

> /resume

Paste a PR URL — or skip the picker entirely with:

claude --from-pr 1234

Windows without Git Bash

Git for Windows is no longer required. When Bash is absent, Claude Code uses PowerShell as the shell tool and treats it as the primary shell. PowerShell 7 is auto-detected whether installed via Microsoft Store, MSI without PATH, or a .NET global tool.

Other wins (v2.1.120 – v2.1.126)

  • MCP alwaysLoad: true — per-server option to opt out of tool-search deferral; all tools for that server always load upfront
  • claude plugin prune — removes orphaned auto-installed plugin dependencies; plugin uninstall --prune cascades
  • /skills search box — type-to-filter in /skills to find skills in long lists without scrolling
  • PostToolUse updatedToolOutput for any tool — PostToolUse hooks can now replace output from any tool, not only MCP tools
  • claude ultrareview subcommand — runs /ultrareview non-interactively from CI/scripts; --json for raw output; exits 0 success or 1 failure
  • --dangerously-skip-permissions extended scope — now bypasses .claude/, .git/, .vscode/, shell config files; catastrophic removal commands still prompt
  • Gateway model discovery — CLAUDE_CODE_ENABLE_GATEWAY_MODEL_DISCOVERY=1 lists models from ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL/v1/models in /model picker
  • MCP startup auto-retry — up to 3 automatic retries on transient startup errors
  • ANTHROPIC_BEDROCK_SERVICE_TIER — selects default, flex, or priority tier
  • /terminal-setup — enables iTerm2 clipboard access for /copy including from tmux
  • Vertex AI mTLS — X.509 certificate-based Workload Identity Federation (mTLS ADC)
  • Memory leak fixes — image-heavy sessions, /usage on large transcripts, long-running tools

Key Takeaways

  • claude project purge gives a clean way to reset a project’s local state without touching the code itself — useful after a botched session or before handing off.
  • The PR-URL /resume pattern closes the “I started this in another terminal” workflow gap — no more hunting session names.
  • Windows users no longer need Git Bash as a prerequisite; PowerShell works as the primary shell.
  • MCP alwaysLoad: true is the right fix for servers where tool-search deferral causes context misses — use sparingly to keep MCP overhead low for other servers.
  • claude ultrareview as a subcommand opens /ultrareview to CI pipelines without an interactive session.

Try It

  1. Project cleanup: run claude project purge --dry-run to see what state is associated with a repo, then claude project purge to clear it.
  2. PR resume: create a PR from a Claude Code session, then try claude --from-pr <number> to jump back to that exact session.
  3. WSL2 login fix: if you’ve been struggling with OAuth redirect failures in WSL2, run claude auth login and paste the code shown in your browser.
  4. CI code review: integrate claude ultrareview <pr-number> into a GitHub Actions step to get cloud multi-agent review findings as CI output.

Open Questions

  • What happens when claude project purge --all runs on a machine with active sessions? Does it interrupt them or only affect completed sessions?
  • Does MCP alwaysLoad: true bypass the per-tool anthropic/maxResultSizeChars annotation, or only the deferral mechanism?

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