Tools reference changedtools-reference
Nearest release: v2.1.233, published an hour before this site recorded the change. Shown because the two are within 24 hours of each other. Nothing here says the release caused the edit.
Recorded here
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where the diff opens
First seen
14 Aug 2026
this site's first read of the page
Recorded edits72to this page, all time
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195195A file that changed on disk after Claude last read it can still be edited when `old_string` matches the current content exactly and unambiguously and Claude Code can read the file without prompting. Matching against the file's current content keeps this safe, and the result notes that the file carries other changes so Claude re-reads it before edits that depend on surrounding content. In any other case, such as a stale `old_string` or one that matches more than once without `replace_all`, Claude reads the file again before editing. The relaxed handling of unread and changed files requires Claude Code v2.1.208 or later; before that, Claude Code refused any edit to a file it hadn't read in the conversation or that changed on disk after the read.
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197Viewing a file with Bash also satisfies the read-before-edit requirement when the command is `cat`, `head`, `tail`, `sed -n 'X,Yp'`, `grep`, `egrep`, or `fgrep` on a single file with no pipes or redirects. Piped output and other Bash commands don't count toward the read-before-edit check.
197Viewing a file with Bash also satisfies the read-before-edit requirement when the command is `cat`, `nl`, `bat`, `batcat`, `head`, `tail`, `sed -n 'X,Yp'`, `grep`, `egrep`, `fgrep`, or `rg` on a single file with no pipes or redirects. Piped output and other Bash commands don't count toward the read-before-edit check.
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199199This affects edit eligibility only, not permissions. [Read and Edit deny rules](/docs/en/permissions#tool-specific-permission-rules) also apply to file commands Claude Code recognizes in Bash, such as `cat`, `head`, `tail`, `sed`, and `grep`, but not to arbitrary subprocesses that read or write files indirectly, like a Python or Node script that opens files itself. The set of commands recognized for deny rules is not the same as the read-before-edit list above: for example, `egrep` and `fgrep` count for read-before-edit but are not checked against Read deny rules. For OS-level enforcement that covers every process, [enable the sandbox](/docs/en/sandboxing).
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