An update on recent Claude Code quality reports
Anthropic traces recent Claude Code degradation to three bugs — a reasoning-effort default, a thinking-cache bug, and a prompt change — all fixed in v2.1.116, with usage-limit resets as compensation.
**The gist** Anthropic's postmortem identifies three separate bugs behind Claude Code quality complaints between **March 4 and April 20, 2026**: a default reasoning-effort drop from high to **medium**, a cache bug that stripped thinking blocks from sessions idle over an hour on every turn, and a prompt instruction capping responses at **100 words**. All are fixed as of **v2.1.116**.
**Why it matters** If Claude Code felt forgetful or burned usage limits faster this spring, it was these bugs, not the models — subscribers get **usage limit resets**. Anthropic now gates prompt changes behind **per-model evals** and staff dogfood the **exact public build**, so silent regressions should surface sooner.
**The gist** Anthropic's postmortem identifies three separate bugs behind Claude Code quality complaints between **March 4 and April 20, 2026**: a default reasoning-effort drop from high to **medium**, a cache bug that stripped thinking blocks from sessions idle over an hour on every turn, and a prompt instruction capping responses at **100 words**. All are fixed as of **v2.1.116**. **Why it matters** If Claude Code felt forgetful or burned usage limits faster this spring, it was these bugs, not the models — subscribers get **usage limit resets**. Anthropic now gates prompt changes behind **per-model evals** and staff dogfood the **exact public build**, so silent regressions should surface sooner. **Watch out** Each bug lived in corner cases that survived code review, tests, and dogfooding — the thinking-cache bug was masked because the CLI **suppresses thinking display**. User reports were initially indistinguishable from **normal variation**, so expect future regressions to take time to confirm too.