You'll noticeTier: how much it should matter to you
2Useful: my rating, 1 to 5
1Signal: worth watching, 1 to 5
Bash ToolArea: what it touches
ImprovementsKind: in v2.1.285,
ImprovementsSection of the release
What
The Bash tool is how Claude runs commands in your terminal. The instructions Claude receives for it were rewritten in this release. The change appears in the main command-line and SDK prompts, and in the command-security-review and command-team-onboarding prompts.
The timeout line now says the limit of 600000ms (10 minutes) is for a foreground command, one Claude waits on. The default is still 120000ms (2 minutes).
The run_in_background option is now explained as running the command detached: "it keeps running across turns and re-invokes you when it exits". One version adds "No & needed."
The earlier wording is kept in one form: use it only if you don't need the result immediately and are OK being notified when the command completes later.
In the capture taken under this release, the longest Bash description is 10,061 characters.
Why
These are Claude's own instructions, so the wording shapes how it uses background commands. Claude is now told plainly that a background command keeps running after its turn ends and that it will be brought back when the command finishes, and that it should not add & itself.
Read from
Names in the bundlerun_in_background
How sure we are
One source agreesOne thing we can check says the same as this entry.
Anthropic's release notes agreeChanged background Bash and PowerShell commands to stop after a time limit (their timeout with run_in_background, default 30 min, max 2 h)…
