Anthropic: Claude Code v2.1.181 introduces /config syntax and Bun 1.4 with auto-retry on API failures

Anthropic has released Claude Code v2.1.181, an update to the CLI tool for agentic coding focused on configuration and reliability.

Configuration directly from the prompt

The headline addition is the /config key=value syntax, which lets users change any setting directly from the prompt without manually editing configuration files. In addition, the Bun runtime — the JavaScript environment the tool runs on — has been upgraded to version 1.4. These changes reduce friction in day-to-day work because users can adjust configuration inline as they go.

Reliability and speed

The release eliminates several sources of frustration. Automatic retry has been added for API connection drops that occur during the “thinking” phase, so interrupted requests are no longer lost. The subagent panel now hides inactive agents after 30 seconds and limits the display to five rows, and startup has been sped up by 120 ms in fresh environments along with a fix for frozen terminals. Prompt caching with a custom ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL and Foundry has also been fixed, which matters for users working through their own endpoints.