AI Coding News — August 29, 2026: Claude Code Adds Model-Switch Hooks
Yesterday's roundup closed with Claude Code's --restricted flag, Codex CLI's @ mentions, and OpenCode's fresh Azure Entra ID support. Today the headline moves back to Claude Code, which shipped a second release the same evening, GitHub Copilot, which finally published the exact list of models it's retiring this weekend, and Cursor, whose cloud agents just dropped a requirement that's tripped up new users since launch.
Claude Code ships model-switch hooks and spend visibility
v2.1.251 landed on August 28, only hours after v2.1.250's quiet bug-fix release, in the official Claude Code changelog. Most of what's in it targets teams running scheduled or gateway-metered sessions rather than everyday interactive use.
- New PreModelSwitch and PostModelSwitch hook events let you block, confirm, or annotate a model switch mid-session; SessionStart resume hooks now report session staleness and an estimated re-cache cost; and a foreground subagent's tool calls and results now stream live to Remote Control clients (background subagents still show status only).
- A Spend limit bar was added to /usage, plus a rate_limits.spend_limit status line field for anyone working behind a Claude apps gateway with spend limits enforced.
The other two tools we track daily were quieter. OpenAI's Codex CLI has shipped nothing public since v0.150.1 (Aug 27, covered yesterday); a v0.151.0-alpha.8 build appeared for early testers on Aug 28, but OpenAI hasn't published release notes for it yet. OpenCode also held at v1.18.25 (Aug 28) with no follow-up after Wednesday's Azure Entra ID and Bedrock fixes.
GitHub Copilot confirms which six models retire on August 31
GitHub's August 2026 model deprecations post, first flagged in our earlier coverage of the global model policy rollout, now has the full list. Six models go away on August 31 across every Copilot surface — chat, code completion, code review, and agent mode alike.
- Gemini 3.1 Pro retires, with Gemini 3.6 Flash as the suggested replacement.
- Claude Opus 4.5 and Claude Opus 4.6 both retire; GitHub points teams toward Opus 4.7, 4.8, or 5.
- Claude Sonnet 4.5 retires in favor of Claude Sonnet 5. Claude Sonnet 4.6 retires too for most tiers, except individual subscribers on annual plans, who keep it so they aren't left without a Sonnet option.
- Raptor mini is retired outright, with no direct replacement named.
Business and Enterprise admins need to check their model policy before the cutover — a model your team depends on could silently stop resolving on August 31 if it isn't already enabled under the replacement name.
Cursor's cloud agents drop the GitHub requirement
Per the Cursor changelog, an August 27 update lets Cloud Agents start without a connected GitHub or other SCM provider — you can prompt from scratch and, when you're ready, save the result to a Cursor Origin repo via the repo picker. Cursor also now port-forwards the agent's live environment straight to your browser, so you can preview it or use design mode without leaving the chat, and a connected Vercel account turns a build into a published live URL with one click. It builds on an August 19 change that let cloud agents subscribe to events — a PR, a Slack thread, a schedule — and act on their own without a prompt kicking things off each time.
What it means for developers
The one deadline here is real: if you administer GitHub Copilot for a team, check your model policy before August 31 — Sonnet 4.6 users on individual annual plans are the only exception to a hard cutover. Claude Code users running scheduled sessions or metered gateways should look at v2.1.251's spend limit bar and the new model-switch hooks before they're needed in an incident. And if you've avoided Cursor's cloud agents because setting up a repo felt like overhead, that friction is gone — worth a second look. Codex CLI and OpenCode are both between releases; nothing to act on there today.
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