Claude Code April 2026: /powerup, Deferred Permissions, and Bedrock Wizard
Claude Code shipped four releases between March 29 and April 4, 2026 (v2.1.89 through v2.1.92), delivering a mix of new interactive features, permission system improvements, developer tooling integrations, and significant performance fixes for long sessions.
The most visible addition is /powerup, introduced in v2.1.90, which launches an interactive lesson system with animated feature demos. The lessons teach Claude Code capabilities — such as multi-agent patterns, hook configuration, and context management — directly inside the terminal session. It is designed for developers who are onboarding or want to discover features without reading documentation.
The permission system received two important additions in v2.1.89. The "defer" permission decision for PreToolUse hooks lets headless sessions pause at a tool call boundary and resume with --resume so the hook can re-evaluate — useful for CI pipelines that need a human gate before a destructive tool runs. A companion PermissionDenied hook fires specifically when auto mode's classifier denies a tool call, enabling custom logging or alerting when the agent hits an unexpected restriction.
v2.1.92 introduced an interactive Bedrock setup wizard that walks developers through AWS authentication, region configuration, and model pinning without requiring manual environment variable setup. The /cost command now shows per-model and cache-hit breakdowns for subscription users, and Remote Control session names default to the hostname as a prefix. Security-sensitive fixes in v2.1.90 hardened PowerShell tool execution against trailing & bypass and argument-splitting attacks. MCP tool result persistence in v2.1.91 allows results up to 500K characters via a _meta["anthropic/maxResultSizeChars"] annotation override. Performance improvements include 60% faster diff computation in the Write tool for large files and elimination of quadratic slowdowns in SSE transport frame handling for long sessions.
Read more — Anthropic Claude Code
Gemini Code Assist: Gemini 3.1 Pro and 3.0 Flash in Preview
Gemini Code Assist gained access to the Gemini 3.1 Pro and Gemini 3.0 Flash models in preview as of March 13, 2026. Both models are available across agent mode, chat, and code generation in VS Code (version 2.75.0+) and IntelliJ (version 1.49.0+), giving developers access to Google's latest reasoning and coding models directly from their IDE without switching to a separate API client.
Gemini 3.1 Pro is the same model that powers Gemini CLI's Plan Mode architectural planning step, and its availability in Code Assist means the same model quality used for breaking down complex tasks in the terminal is now accessible inline in the editor for multi-file refactors and architecture questions. Gemini 3.0 Flash targets lower-latency use cases such as inline completions and quick chat responses where speed is prioritised over depth.
Earlier in the month, the March 4 VS Code 2.73.0 release promoted File Outline and Finish Changes to general availability. File Outline generates a structured summary of code files showing classes, methods, and their relationships, reducing the need to manually navigate large files. Finish Changes completes in-progress code modifications intelligently, handling the mechanical downstream edits after a developer has made the structural change. Both features were previously in preview.
Read more — Google Cloud
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