Relaunching Claude Code keeps your selected model

Restarting after an update keeps the model you picked instead of reverting to the default.

You'll noticeTier: how much it should matter to you

5Useful: my rating, 1 to 5

2Signal: worth watching, 1 to 5

ModelsArea: what it touches

ImprovementsKind: in v2.1.228, 11 Aug 26

What probably matters to youSection of the release

What

When the CLI restarts itself, it now passes --model with the model you had selected, so an update relaunch or a renderer switch no longer drops you back to the default model.

Details

Appended next to the existing --add-dir, --effort and --permission-mode arguments.
Omitted when the selection is the default, when running a mantle deployment, or when it equals the configured fallback model.
Applies to the auto-update relaunch ("Switching from … to latest") and to /tui renderer switching.

Evidence

--model

Strings lifted out of the shipped bundle, so the claim above can be checked against them.

Read from

Names in the bundle--model

How sure we are

One source agreesOne thing we can check says the same as this entry.

Anthropic's release notes agreeFixed /tui reverting the session to an earlier model when /model had been changed since the last response

See this entry in the whole of v2.1.228 →

The build it came inv2.1.228

11 Aug 2026 · 245 entries, this one is #31.

Use it now22
You'll notice117
Nothing to try yet28
Under the hood78

Either side of it

v2.1.227Older
v2.1.229Newer

Open the release →

Names in this entry

cli--model
Sets the model for the current session with a model alias such as sonnet, opus, haiku, or fable, or a model's full name. Overrides the model setting and ANTHROPIC_MODEL
cli--add-dir
Add additional working directories for Claude to read and edit files. Grants file access; Claude Code doesn't discover most .claude/ configuration from these directories. Validates that each path exists as a directory. You can't add most network paths, such as \\server\share. To persist these directories across sessions, set permissions.additionalDirectories in settings
cli--effort
Set the effort level for the current session. Options: low, medium, high, xhigh, max, or ultracode. Available levels depend on the model. ultracode requests xhigh effort with ultracode turned on, and requires Claude Code v2.1.203 or later. Overrides the modelSettings and effortLevel settings for this session and does not persist
cli--permission-mode
Begin in a specified permission mode. Accepts default, acceptEdits, plan, auto, dontAsk, bypassPermissions, or manual as an alias for default. The manual alias selects the permission mode the UI labels Manual and requires Claude Code v2.1.200 or later; claude --help lists it in place of default, and both values work. Overrides defaultMode from settings files. Without this flag or --dangerously-skip-permissions, a new session starts in the permission mode described in which permission mode a session starts in. For -p, that's default when nothing is configured
slash/tui
Set the terminal UI renderer and relaunch into it with your conversation intact. fullscreen enables the flicker-free alt-screen renderer. With no argument, prints the active renderer

Anthropic's note

Upstream's own release notes for v2.1.228 name something this entry names, so the two are probably about the same change. Probably: the pairing is made on a shared name rather than on the words around it.

Fixed /tui reverting the session to an earlier model when /model had been changed since the last response

Is this right?