Hot on the heels of fixing last weeks’ quality issues, the Claude Code team ships another feature-packed release. Version 2.1.118 brings features that power users have been waiting for.
Vim Visual Mode
Claude Code now supports Vim Visual Mode (v) and Visual-Line Mode (V) with selection, operators, and visual feedback. If you work with Vim keybindings in Claude Code, this is a big deal — text selection and manipulation now works the way you’d expect from a real Vim setup.
Custom Themes
The new /theme command lets you create, switch, and manage custom color themes. Themes are stored as JSON files in ~/.claude/themes/ and can also be shipped by plugins. If you’ve been staring at the default colors long enough, you can finally build your own setup.
MCP Tool Hooks
The most exciting feature for developers: hooks can now invoke MCP tools directly via the new mcp_tool type. This lets you build automations that trigger external tools on specific events. On top of that, PostToolUse and PostToolUseFailure now include duration_ms, giving you tool execution time data.
Other Changes
/cost and /stats have been merged into /usage. There’s a new DISABLE_UPDATES environment variable that blocks all update paths — including manual updates via claude update. And WSL on Windows can now inherit managed settings from the Windows host.
Bug fixes worth noting: --resume works again for sessions created before v2.1.85. Files outside the project root no longer cause errors when skills are enabled. And the display tearing issues in iTerm2 + tmux are fixed.
My Take
After the turbulent weeks of quality regressions and pricing changes, it’s good to see the Claude Code team still shipping feature work. MCP Tool Hooks are the highlight — they make Claude Code significantly more powerful as an automation platform. Vim mode and themes are nice-to-have, but for the right audience, they’re a genuine quality-of-life upgrade.
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