This week in Claude Code, Codex and Gemini CLI (week of November 1, 2026)

This week has a deadline in it. Fast mode for Opus 4.8 is deprecated as of 2026-10-30 and removed on 2026-11-30. The CHANGELOG is specific that after removal, fast mode requests on Opus 4.8 return an error and do not fall back to standard Opus 4.8.

On the feature side, idle compaction spread to VS Code and the desktop app — two weeks after it arrived, terminal-only.

Claude Code

Four releases: 2.1.311, 2.1.312, 2.1.314 and 2.1.316.

A deprecation with a date (2.1.316)

The CHANGELOG reads: "Deprecated fast mode for Opus 4.8 as of October 30, 2026; it will be removed on November 30, 2026. After removal, fast mode requests on Opus 4.8 return an error and do not fall back to standard Opus 4.8. Migrate to Opus 5.5 to keep the speedup."

If a script or settings file assumes fast mode, move it to Opus 5.5 during November. After removal it does not quietly get slower — it errors.

Confining writes to the working directories (2.1.314)

Setting	What it does
permissions.blockWritesOutsideWorkingDirectories	Write, Edit and NotebookEdit refuse paths outside the working directories in every permission mode

It pairs with permissions.blockReadsOutsideWorkingDirectories on the read side. With both set, the reach of the file tools no longer depends on the permission mode.

Idle compaction spread (2.1.314)

"Added idle compaction to VS Code and Claude Desktop's Code tab: a 200K+ token conversation left idle is summarized, and the summary is used on your next message if the prompt cache has expired."

What landed in the terminal in 2.1.299 reached VS Code and the desktop Code tab two weeks later. For the conditions and how to turn it off, see Making Claude Code compact earlier, or never.

New environment variables (2.1.316)

Variable	What it does
CLAUDE_CODE_DISABLE_ULTRATHINK	Turns the ultrathink keyword off
CLAUDE_CODE_SUBAGENT_EFFORT	Sets the effort subagents run at when nothing else names one, instead of inheriting the session's

Telemetry and permissions (2.1.312, 2.1.316)

On security, --restricted sessions could upload files from outside the working directories when a Read allow rule covered them; that is fixed. Separately, for Team and Enterprise logins, server-managed settings fetched from Anthropic's API now apply without an approval prompt, and a stored copy that doesn't verify is refused.

Easy ones to miss

• Sessions failing turn after turn with "Invalid effort level" where an admin caps a model's effort are fixed: Claude Code lowers the effort, retries, and says which level it uses (2.1.314)
• A PreCompact hook with very large output could make compaction fail or repeat; each hook's output is now cut at 10,000 characters (2.1.314)
• Claude could overwrite a very large CLAUDE.md, rules file or @-included file after seeing only its start; Write now asks Claude to read it all or edit in place (2.1.312)
• Standard-context sessions that stopped with "Usage credits required for 1M context" past 200K tokens now compact and continue (2.1.311)
• SubagentStop hooks were firing about twice a minute per running subagent instead of once at the end (2.1.311)

Codex

v0.165.0 brought the Vertex AI provider and memories by default; see Codex CLI v0.165.

v0.166.0 adds six features.

Addition	What it does
codex queue --resume	Resumes unloaded threads after queueing a message
codex doctor --network-only	Runs focused configuration, connectivity and WebSocket diagnostics
Transcript selection	Keyboard-driven, with word, line and page motions, search and configurable shortcuts
GPT-6.1 Terra	Added to the bundled, Vertex AI and Amazon Bedrock model catalogs
Safety-block explanations	Clearer reasons in the TUI, with selectable safer follow-up prompts

Two fixes stand out, both about resuming: acknowledged approval and permission settings are now preserved when resuming or forking threads, and reasoning-token accounting is preserved across resume and fork to avoid premature compaction.

Gemini CLI

v0.66.0 is 26 entries of fixes and chores with no features. The configuration-related ones:

• Settings placeholders are now resolved after .env files are loaded
• The user-level ~/.gitconfig is preserved in shell and git environments
• Interactive credential and SSH prompts are disabled in getSafeGitEnv
• MCP OAuth flows support opt-in private network endpoints
• keybindings.json supports a keys array

A banner was also added saying Gemini CLI is not optimized for Gemini 4. For the previous release, see Gemini CLI v0.65 enforces read-only settings in untrusted folders.

What to check now

1. If you use fast mode on Opus 4.8, move to Opus 5.5 before November 30
2. Rebuild any telemetry that relied on claude_code.safety_event
3. Note that idle compaction now runs in VS Code and the desktop app too
4. Set permissions.blockWritesOutsideWorkingDirectories if you want writes confined

Summary

• Fast mode on Opus 4.8 is removed on 2026-11-30 and will error, with no fallback
• Idle compaction was added to VS Code and the desktop app's Code tab
• permissions.blockWritesOutsideWorkingDirectories confines writes in every permission mode
• claude_code.safety_event stopped being sent a week after it was added
• Codex 0.166.0 adds codex queue --resume and codex doctor --network-only