Daily AI Builder Brief - May 11, 2026

Executive Summary

Claude Code shipped three patches in the window: v2.1.136 (May 8), v2.1.137 and v2.1.138 (May 9).
v2.1.136 is the substantive one for builders. The rest are internal and a Windows VS Code fix.
MCP servers from .mcp.json, plugins, and claude.ai connectors no longer silently disappear after /clear in VS Code, JetBrains, and the Agent SDK.
MCP OAuth refresh tokens no longer get clobbered when multiple servers refresh at the same time.
New settings.autoMode.hard_deny lets you write classifier rules that block unconditionally, ignoring user intent and allow exceptions.
--resume and --continue now find sessions when the project path contains underscores.
WSL2 can finally paste images from the Windows clipboard via a PowerShell fallback.
No Anthropic news posts, no MCP spec movement, no frontier model drops inside the 48 hour window.

Claude Code

v2.1.136 (May 8)

The session-persistence fix is the headline. If you rely on .mcp.json servers, plugin-provided servers, or claude.ai connectors, /clear used to drop them silently in VS Code, JetBrains, and the Agent SDK. That's resolved. Pair it with the concurrent OAuth refresh fix and multi-MCP setups become a lot less flaky. settings.autoMode.hard_deny is the new hammer for auto mode policy: blocks regardless of user intent or allow rules, so guardrails actually hold. Also patched: 400 errors when extended thinking emitted a redacted block after a tool call, a credential-write race causing login loops, and a --resume/--continue bug on paths with underscores. GitHub release

v2.1.137 (May 9)

VS Code extension was failing to activate on Windows because of a hardcoded build path in the bundled SDK (createRequire polyfill bug). Fixed. GitHub release

v2.1.138 (May 9)

Internal fixes. Nothing actionable. GitHub release

Anthropic

Nothing in the 48 hour window. Last posts were May 4-6 (SpaceX compute, Claude for finance, Code with Claude 2026).

MCP Ecosystem

Nothing in the 48 hour window. The stateless HTTP transport variant and MCP Server Cards proposals from the 2026 roadmap are still in review. MCP roadmap

Broader AI

Nothing today.

What This Means For Builders

If you ship agents that load MCP servers from .mcp.json or plugins, upgrade to v2.1.136+ today. The /clear regression silently degraded tool availability mid-session.
Multi-MCP OAuth setups (multiple connectors hitting the same provider) get more reliable. Worth retesting any flow that was getting kicked back to login.
If you wrote auto-mode allowlists hoping they'd hold, audit them. hard_deny is the new layer for things that must never run, full stop.
Windows builders on WSL2 finally get clipboard image paste. Small thing, removes a real friction point.