Claude Code v2.1.198: Background Agents Auto-Open PRs, Chrome Extension Goes GA, Notification Hooks Land

TL;DR: Claude Code v2.1.198 (July 1) ships background agents that close their own loop — commit, push, draft PR — plus notification hooks for status, Chrome extension GA, and enterprise model governance.

Four changes in the July 1 release worth knowing:

Background agents auto-PR. When a background agent finishes code work in a git worktree, it now automatically commits all changes, pushes to origin, and opens a draft pull request. No human step to close the loop. (See the companion post for the full setup workflow.)

Claude in Chrome: generally available. The browser extension exits beta. No action required if you were already in the preview.

Notification hooks. Two new events fire through the Notification hook: agent_needs_input (the session is blocked and needs you) and agent_completed (the agent finished its work). Wire them to a desktop notification, Slack webhook, or any shell command — and stop polling the agents panel.

Enterprise model entitlements (beta). Org admins can now restrict which models and effort levels users in their organization can access. Set in the admin console.

Also shipped: subagents and context compaction now inherit the session's extended thinking config; the AWS anthropicAws gateway provider is available for failover routing; the /agents creation wizard is removed — create agents via natural language or by editing .claude/agents/ directly.

Why it matters: Auto-PR completes the background agent automation arc. A fully hands-off task now ends with a reviewable artifact, not a "go check the terminal."

Sources: Claude Code changelog