AI Catchup
Catch up on AI -- tools, practices, and what matters this week
Latest Edition
The AI Catchup -- May 19, 2026
Claude Code 2.1.142 is a deceptively impactful release: the new `claude agents` flag set finally makes background session dispatch configurable per run, fast mode now defaults to Opus 4.7 (with a documented 4.6 override), and a long-standing bug that silently capped remote MCP tool calls at 60 seconds is fixed. If you are running agent dashboards or remote MCP servers, upgrade week.
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Codex Adds Windows Computer Use + ChatGPT Mobile Windows Connections for On-the-Go Steering
OpenAI says Codex can now use Computer use on Windows to test apps, debug flows, and review work on your Windows machine, and that Codex in the ChatGPT mobile app can connect to Windows machines so you can steer tasks from your phone.
Claude Code adds dynamic workflows (research preview) for large parallel agent runs
Dynamic workflows in Claude Code let Claude write orchestration scripts, fan out work across tens to hundreds of parallel subagents, verify results, and resume long-running jobs.
Claude Opus 4.8 Fast Mode: 2.5x Faster Output Tokens in Research Preview
Anthropic launched Fast mode for Claude Opus 4.8 in research preview, promising 2.5x faster output token speeds with the same Opus-level intelligence. It is available now in Claude Code for developers with extra usage enabled, and on the Claude Platform API through an account manager or a waitlist form.
OpenAI's Secure MCP Tunnel: Connect Private MCP Servers Over Outbound-Only HTTPS
OpenAI published a Secure MCP Tunnel guide that connects private and on-prem MCP servers to ChatGPT and Codex without opening inbound firewall ports. A tunnel-client polls OpenAI for work over outbound HTTPS, forwards JSON-RPC requests to the local server, and posts responses back through the same tunnel.
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