G'day everyone, welcome to the show!
I'm Lachlan Reed, and I'm joined by James Turner.
And James, if you've ever spent ten minutes hunting down a hidden JSON configuration
file just to toggle a single setting in your CLI tool, you are going to love this
update.
Claude Code version 2.1.181 is out, and they've finally killed the
"edit-config-and-restart" loop.
Oh, thank goodness.
That loop is the ultimate flow-state killer.
What did they replace it with?
They introduced a beautiful, on-the-fly `/config key=value` syntax.
You can type it directly into your active prompt session, or even pass it through
one-off commands using the `-p` flag.
No config files, no restarting the session.
It just works.
Wait, so I can change behavior mid-session?
Give me a concrete example.
What's a setting we can actually toggle on the fly now?
Alright, absolute classic use case: Claude's extended thinking.
Sometimes you want deep reasoning, but other times you're just doing basic
refactoring and want speed.
Now, you just type `/config thinking=false` right there in the prompt,
and boom-latency is cut in half for the next turn.
No way.
That is huge for rapid-fire debugging.
You don't want to wait for a giant reasoning chain when you're just asking it to fix
a typo or rename a variable.
And you said this works with Remote Control mode too?
Spot on.
If you're driving Claude Code remotely via an API or an external script,
you can pipe that `/config` command straight through to adjust parameters
dynamically based on the task complexity.
It makes the whole execution pipeline incredibly flexible.
That's incredibly slick.
Now, what about the other under-the-hood stuff in this release?
I saw something about a presence file?
Yes!
This one is a massive quality-of-life win if you use the mobile app alongside the
CLI.
They've added an environment variable called `CLAUDE_CLIENT_PRESENCE_FILE`.
Essentially, it writes a temporary file to track when you are actively typing in
your terminal.
Ah!
Let me guess-so it knows you're at your desk and stops buzzing your phone with
duplicate push notifications?
Exactly!
No more pocket vibrations every time you run a query.
It silences those mobile notifications while you're active on the desktop client.
It's a tiny detail, but it saves your sanity.
Honestly, those are the details that show they're actually using their own tool.
What about macOS users?
I heard there's a new sandbox tweak.
Spot on, mate.
They introduced a new toggle called `sandbox.allowAppleEvents`.
Because Claude Code runs in a secure sandbox, it used to block AppleScript and
system events entirely.
Now, if you toggle this to true, Claude can actually send Apple Events to automate
other macOS apps.
Oh, wow.
That sounds incredibly powerful but also slightly terrifying.
Claude scripting my actual operating system?
Yeah, it definitely raises the stakes.
But for developers trying to build local automation workflows,
it opens up a whole new world.
Just...
maybe watch what you approve when the permission prompts start popping up!
Fair enough!
Keep your guard rails up, but definitely grab version 2.1.181.
That `/config` command alone is worth the update.
Absolutely.
That's our quick look at the latest Claude Code update.
Go update your packages, and we'll catch you in the next one!