For me it's gotten to the point where I have a wrapper script that applies like 5 environment variables and even patches the system prompt strings prior to every Claude Code invocation.

After the Claude Code source code leak someone discovered that some variables are read directly from the process environment. Can't even trust that setting them in ~/.claude/settings.json will work!

I've actually started asking Claude itself to dissect every Claude Code update in order figure out if it broke some part of the Rube Goldberg machine I was forced to set up.

That's the beginning of Googlification of feature evolution, via population statistics rather than quality.

If it increases a KPI by 5% for 95% of users but torpedos the experience for 5%? Ship it.