Under the hoodTier: how much it should matter to you
3Useful: my rating, 1 to 5
3Signal: worth watching, 1 to 5
SettingsArea: what it touches
Internal ChangesKind: in v2.1.277,
ImprovementsSection of the release
What
The update_settings tool previously only allowed writing to localSettings. It now accepts other recognized setting sources as well, each with its own set of allowed keys.
When the source is userSettings and the key being set is effortLevel, the tool now validates that the value is one of the known, valid effort levels. If it isn't, the call fails with a new dedicated error message that lists the valid effort levels.
Why
This prevents update_settings from silently accepting an invalid effort level and gives a clear, specific error message pointing to the valid options instead of a generic failure.
One source agreesOne thing we can check says the same as this entry.
Anthropic's release notes agree[VSCode] Fixed the effort slider's level not persisting into later sessions on a model that already had a level saved with /effort
