Claude Code v2.1.241: Artifact Deletion, Lower-Priority Mode, and a Bedrock Proxy Double-Billing Fix#

Part of the Claude Code Version Tracker series. | Official Env Vars | Official Changelog

Coming from v2.1.238, three builds landed in four days. Only v2.1.239 carries a real changelog; v2.1.240 and v2.1.241 both read "Bug fixes and reliability improvements."^[1] The binary tells a fuller story: this span adds the ability to delete an Artifact, a lower-priority mode that keeps a session going after you hit your weekly limit, and a one-time nudge to switch your default effort to medium. Two of those three never appear in any changelog entry.

Lower-priority mode#

When a Max plan hits its usage ceiling, Claude Code now offers to keep working at lower priority instead of stopping. The offer runs through a rate-limit options menu (tengu_rate_limit_options_menu_select_low_priority); accepting shows "Continuing now at lower priority until your limit resets. Your weekly limit still applies, and responses may pause while waiting for spare capacity." Turning it off restores the default: "New messages wait for your usage limit as usual." The offer is gated per plan tier (default_claude_max_5x, default_claude_max_20x) and is presented again after each weekly reset. It bisects to v2.1.239 (published 2026-08-21), which spends its changelog on a different usage message (spend-limit resets) and never mentions this one.

Deleting Artifacts#

CLAUDE_CODE_ARTIFACT_DELETE also shipped in v2.1.239, absent from that release's notes. The wiring guards deletion behind ownership and confirmation: "Only the Artifact's owner can delete it," "Artifacts cannot be deleted from plan mode," and a hard warning that once gone, "its link no longer works for anyone, its comments and version history are gone, and it cannot be restored." The gate function refuses outright in remote sessions (CLAUDE_CODE_REMOTE) and otherwise falls back to the tengu_cobalt_plinth_alder feature gate. This extends the Artifact collaboration surface (comments, versions, live watching) that has been growing over recent releases into destructive territory, with the guardrails to match.

The effort-medium nudge#

v2.1.240, published under "bug fixes," added a one-time prompt: "Switch your default effort to medium?" Accept it and Claude Code writes "Effort set to medium and saved as your default," storing the choice as a per-model setting keyed by canonical model name. A hasSeenEffortMediumNudge flag ensures it shows once. The nudge and its result are both instrumented (tengu_effort_medium_nudge_shown, tengu_effort_medium_nudge_resolved).

Fixes worth naming from v2.1.239#

The changelog's strongest entry is a Bedrock billing fix: streaming behind a proxy that strips the response Content-Type header silently fell back to non-streaming and re-ran every turn, doubling billed API calls. A related fix keeps startup from hanging behind an HTTPS proxy when Bedrock uses an SSO profile with awsAuthRefresh. The build also stops a raw crash dump when you launch Claude Code from a directory that no longer exists, ends a 5-second pause on Edit and Write in JetBrains terminals, and closes the session's Chrome tab group on /clear and exit.

New Environment Variables#

Variable	What It Does
`CLAUDE_CODE_ARTIFACT_DELETE`	Enables the delete-Artifact path (owner-only, requires confirmation, blocked in plan mode). The gate refuses in remote sessions and otherwise falls back to the `tengu_cobalt_plinth_alder` feature gate. Shipped v2.1.239 (2026-08-21).
`CLAUDE_CODE_THINKING_DISPLAY_UPDATES`	Overrides whether Claude's in-progress thinking and connector text render during a turn. When set it takes precedence over the `thinking_display_updates` dynamic config and the `tengu_thinking_display_updates` gate, which is off by default.

What These Tell Us#

The version-to-changelog gap is the pattern here. Two user-facing capabilities, deleting Artifacts and continuing at lower priority, both landed in a release whose notes cover neither, and a third arrived in a build labeled maintenance. The binary is the only record that they exist. Feature-gated defaults (tengu_cobalt_plinth_alder, the per-tier lowpri arming) mean these are rolling out server-side, so the code can ship quietly before the toggle flips for everyone.

The direction is remote and collaborative. Alongside the headline features, this span adds a directory-sync family for cloud sessions (CLAUDE_CODE_DIR_SYNC_OVERLAY, CLAUDE_CODE_DIR_SYNC_GIT, CLAUDE_CODE_DIR_SYNC_ARCHIVE) carried in the remote-session forwarding allowlist, plus bridge and device-hook plumbing. Artifacts get deletion; the usage system learns to degrade gracefully instead of stopping; the SSH-worktree and cloud-session paths keep filling in. The single-machine CLI keeps growing a distributed surface underneath it.

This analysis is conducted for educational and research purposes under fair use principles. All trademarks and software referenced belong to their respective owners. This content is not intended to infringe on any intellectual property rights, circumvent any protections, or encourage unauthorized access to proprietary systems.

Sources#

Claude Code Official Changelog — v2.1.239, v2.1.240, v2.1.241 release notes

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