Anthropic · 2026-10-31 · notable
Claude Code 2.1.316 — Opus 4.8 fast mode deprecated, pooled gateway budgets
Claude Code 2.1.316 deprecates fast mode for Opus 4.8 (removal on November 30, 2026), adds pooled group budgets to the Claude apps gateway, and adds a subagent effort setting.
Claude Code 2.1.316 retires Opus 4.8 fast mode on November 30 and lets gateway groups share one monthly budget.
What is it?
Fast mode for Opus 4.8 is deprecated as of October 30, 2026 and will be removed on November 30, 2026. After that, fast mode requests on Opus 4.8 return an error and do not fall back to standard Opus 4.8. The release notes tell users to migrate to Opus 5.5 to keep the speedup.
How does it work?
The Claude apps gateway gains a pooled_budget field on the spend limits admin API, so a group shares one monthly budget on top of each member's own limit. A new managed.policy_mode of layered applies every matching policy, merged in order. CLAUDE_CODE_SUBAGENT_EFFORT sets the effort level for subagents instead of inheriting the session's.
Why does it matter?
Teams that rely on Opus 4.8 fast mode have one month to switch models or see errors. Gateway admins get shared budgets and layered policies, and a new CLAUDE_CODE_DISABLE_ULTRATHINK variable turns off the ultrathink keyword.
Who is it for?
teams running Claude Code behind a company gateway
Try it
npm i -g @anthropic-ai/[email protected]