If you’re using Claude Code regularly, you’ve probably noticed the updates have been coming fast and furious. After 2.1.74 and 2.1.75 — which brought the 1M token context and context suggestions — Anthropic followed up immediately with version 2.1.76. And this one’s a big deal.
MCP Elicitation: Servers Can Now Ask Questions
The headline feature is MCP Elicitation. Until now, communication between Claude Code and MCP servers was a one-way street — Claude asks, the server answers. Now MCP servers can request structured input right in the middle of a task. This happens through two modes: Form Mode shows you an interactive dialog with form fields, while URL Mode opens a browser URL — perfect for auth flows where tokens shouldn’t pass through the LLM context.
There are also two new hooks: Elicitation and ElicitationResult, which let you intercept requests and override responses before they’re sent back. For MCP developers, this is a major step forward — servers become significantly more interactive.
Agent Teams: Multiple Agents, One Goal
The second big addition: Agent Teams. Claude Code can now coordinate multiple agents working together on a task. Claude automatically records insights and recalls them as needed. This sounds like a feature that really shines on larger projects — code review, multi-file refactoring, complex migrations.
/effort and Other Improvements
The new /effort command lets you set the model’s effort level — essentially how much thinking Claude should put into a response. There’s also the PostCompact hook that fires after compaction completes, and worktree.sparsePaths for large monorepos so only the directories you actually need get checked out.
For VS Code users, there’s a new spark icon in the activity bar listing all Claude Code sessions, a full markdown document view for plans with comment support, and a native MCP server management dialog.
Bug Fixes
Under the hood, things got cleaned up too: Bash heredocs with JavaScript template literals no longer throw ‘Bad substitution’ errors, Linux native modules now load on Amazon Linux 2, and the default model on Bedrock, Vertex, and Microsoft Foundry is now Opus 4.6.
My Take
MCP Elicitation is the feature that makes the difference here. It turns MCP servers from passive tools into active participants in your workflow. If you’re building or using custom MCP servers — update immediately.
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