Source Intelligence

DisclaimerUnofficial, and not affiliated with Anthropic. Nearly all of this is read straight out of what ships: npm bundles, captured prompts, published docs. Anthropic's own notes go in verbatim, marked as theirs. The rest is my reading, and every entry carries the strings behind it. If one looks wrong, vote it down and say why.

All of v2.1.236 Home All releases olderv2.1.235 v2.1.237newer
Claude Code v2.1.236

Change detection ignores custom diff drivers and submodules

You'll notice
Useful4 Signal2
Git Integration

Change detection no longer runs your external diff tool or scans submodules, so it's faster.

What

The internal git call Claude Code uses to detect which files have changed now runs with --no-ext-diff and --ignore-submodules=all. A custom diff program set through git's diff.external setting is no longer invoked by that call, and activity inside submodules no longer affects the result. This removes a source of slowdowns and odd output for anyone with an external diff tool configured, and it applies to everyone with no flag or setting to turn it on.

Details
  • --no-ext-diff stops git from handing the comparison to a diff.external driver from your git settings, so Claude Code's own diffing stays internal and predictable.
  • --ignore-submodules=all means churn in submodules neither changes the set of files reported as modified nor slows the check down.
  • Both arguments join the -z and --no-renames arguments already passed on the same invocation.
Evidence

"--ignore-submodules=all",, --no-ext-diff

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

Related

Other releases about the same thing. Found by shared names or similar wording; neither means one caused the other.

See this entry in the whole of v2.1.236 →