Claude Code v2.1.161: Enhanced Metrics, Improved Agent Management, and Better Tool Reliability

Claude Code v2.1.161 brings custom metric dimensions with OTEL labels, better agent progress visibility, and numerous reliability improvements for tools and workflows.

June 3, 2026 • 10 min read • By ClaudeWorld

The latest Claude Code release delivers significant improvements to monitoring capabilities, agent management, and overall system reliability. This update focuses on giving power users better visibility into their workflows while fixing critical issues that affect daily productivity.

What’s New

Enhanced Monitoring and Metrics

  • Custom Metric Dimensions: OTEL_RESOURCE_ATTRIBUTES values are now included as labels on metric datapoints, enabling you to slice usage metrics by custom dimensions like team or repository
  • Improved Agent Progress Tracking: claude agents rows now display done/total progress indicators when work is distributed across multiple tasks, with peek mode showing the longest-running item

Better MCP Integration

  • Cleaner MCP Interface: The /mcp command now automatically collapses claude.ai connectors you’ve never signed in to behind a “Show unused connectors” row, reducing clutter
  • Secure MCP Management: Fixed claude mcp commands printing secrets to the terminal - ${VAR} references are no longer expanded, and credential headers and URL secrets are properly redacted

Enhanced Tool Reliability

  • Independent Tool Execution: Parallel tool calls now handle failures better - a failed Bash command no longer cancels other calls in the same batch, with each tool returning its own result independently
  • Improved Linux Clipboard Support: Fullscreen mode now uses wl-copy/xclip/xsel on Linux when available, copying to both clipboard and PRIMARY selection for middle-click paste
  • Better Terminal Integration: The “hold {key} for native selection” hint now displays the correct key per terminal type

Accessibility and Performance

  • Motion Settings Respect: Fixed /effort dialog, workflow animations, and prompt keyword shimmer not honoring the “Reduce motion” accessibility setting
  • Terminal Performance: Improved rendering performance by stabilizing the layout engine’s JIT compilation profile and optimizing large file write operations

Critical Bug Fixes

  • Fixed authentication issues with third-party providers (Bedrock, Vertex, Foundry, Mantle) caused by managed-settings policies
  • Resolved background subagent output corruption in claude -p stdout when using text or JSON output formats
  • Fixed /usage-credits incorrectly triggering re-login for Team and Enterprise admins
  • Corrected /autofix-pr false negatives when working in git worktrees
  • Resolved Windows bash hook execution failures
  • Fixed OpenTelemetry log event drops during initialization
  • Addressed workflow agent file editing restrictions in isolated worktrees

VSCode Integration

  • Added helpful tip suggesting to disable terminal GPU acceleration or run /terminal-setup to fix garbled glyph issues

How to Update

To update to Claude Code v2.1.161:

  1. Close any running Claude Code sessions
  2. Download the latest version from the release page
  3. Follow the standard installation process for your platform
  4. Restart your terminal and verify the update with claude --version

Existing sessions and configurations will be preserved during the update process.