Claude Code v2.1.78: Enhanced Error Handling and Plugin Persistence

Claude Code v2.1.78 delivers significant improvements to error handling, plugin management, and terminal integration. This release focuses on making your development workflow more resilient and user-friendly, with particular attention to plugin developers and users working in complex terminal environments.

What’s New

Enhanced Error Handling

StopFailure Hook Events: A new StopFailure hook event now fires when conversations end due to API errors like rate limits or authentication failures. This gives you better visibility into what’s happening when things go wrong and allows for custom error handling workflows.

Improved API Error Management: Fixed an infinite loop issue where API errors would trigger stop hooks that re-fed blocking errors to the model, creating a frustrating cycle for users.

Plugin System Improvements

Persistent Plugin Data: The new ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_DATA} variable enables plugin persistent state that survives plugin updates. When you run /plugin uninstall, the system now prompts before deleting persistent data, protecting your important plugin configurations.

Enhanced Agent Configuration: Plugin developers can now use effort, maxTurns, and disallowedTools frontmatter support for plugin-shipped agents, providing more granular control over agent behavior.

Terminal and Interface Enhancements

Better tmux Integration: Terminal notifications (iTerm2/Kitty/Ghostty popups and progress bars) now properly reach the outer terminal when running inside tmux with set -g allow-passthrough on.

Streaming Improvements: Response text now streams line-by-line as it’s generated, providing a smoother and more responsive user experience.

Voice Mode Fixes: Resolved issues with modifier-combo push-to-talk keybindings (like ctrl+k) and added WSL2 support with WSLg on Windows 11.

Developer Experience Improvements

Git Integration Fixes: Resolved git log HEAD failing with “ambiguous argument” errors in sandboxed Bash on Linux, and cleaned up stub files that were polluting git status in working directories.

Conversation History: Fixed cc log and --resume silently truncating conversation history on large sessions (>5 MB) that used subagents.

Sandbox Security: Added visible startup warnings when sandbox.enabled: true is set but dependencies are missing, preventing silent sandbox disabling.

VS Code Integration

UI Polish: Fixed the brief flash of login screen when opening the sidebar while already authenticated.

Model Selection: Resolved “API Error: Rate limit reached” errors when selecting Opus model.

How to Update

Update Claude Code to v2.1.78 using your preferred method:

npm: npm update -g @anthropic/claude-code
Homebrew: brew upgrade claude-code
Download: Visit the release page for manual installation

After updating, restart any active Claude Code sessions to ensure all new features are available.