Cline 3.17.9: Enhanced Claude 4 Support (Experimental), Upgraded Task Timeline & CSV/XLSX Support

Hello Cline community 🫡

We've been burning the candle at both ends to make Cline work as well as possible with the new Claude 4 family of models, and we're excited to share that Cline 3.17.9 includes experimental Claude 4 support that addresses reliability issues, an upgraded task timeline with scrolling navigation, and expanded file upload capabilities for data analysis.

Experimental Claude 4 Support

If you've been using Claude 4 with Cline, you've probably noticed some frustrating edit failures. The model would sometimes struggle with complex diff operations or provide slightly imperfect instructions that caused Cline to fall back to rewriting entire files. v3.17.9 includes experimental improvements that should make Claude 4 more reliable.

The changes focus on how Cline communicates with Claude 4, particularly around search and replace operations. We've adjusted the delimiter approach, swapping out < and > with - and  +, which has shown promising results in our internal testing. This translates to fewer failed edits and more successful code modifications. Shoutout to heguro for inspiring this approach!

Use Claude 4 as you normally would with Cline. If you run into any issues, use /reportbug in the chat to help us continue refining the experience. Your feedback is extremely valuable!

Task Timeline Scrolling

The new task timeline scrolling feature lets you click on any point in your task timeline and jump directly to that moment in your conversation. Click on a timeline point, and Cline takes you straight there.

Use timeline navigation when you need to understand the context behind a code change or when you want to branch from an earlier point in your development process. It pairs perfectly with Cline's checkpoint system for exploring alternative approaches.

CSV and XLSX Support: Enhanced Data File Handling

Cline now supports CSV and XLSX file uploads for data analysis workflows. CSV files work seamlessly, while Excel support handles basic spreadsheets well but may require Python scripts for complex files with advanced features like structured table references or multiple worksheets.

When uploading data files, provide context about what you want to accomplish. Cline excels at analyzing CSV data and can handle straightforward Excel files. For complex Excel files, Cline can generate Python scripts using libraries like openpyxl to process your data. This opens up powerful workflows for data analysis, visualization, and application development.

Under the Hood Improvements

Beyond the headline features, v3.17.9 includes several technical improvements that make Cline more reliable:

• Enhanced Provider Support: New Grok-3 models from xAI (grok-3, grok-3-fast, grok-3-mini, grok-3-mini-fast) and additional models for Vertex AI and Nebius AI Studio (Thanks PeterDaveHello!)
• Better Error Handling: Improved AWS Bedrock credential caching and more informative API retry messages (Thanks DaveFres!)
• Search Tool Optimization: Fixed issues where the search tool could overload conversations with massive outputs
• Checkpoint Reliability: Resolved functionality issues with the checkpoint system
• UI Polish: Improved chat box sizing for a more pleasant user experience

Testing and Feedback

Since the Claude 4 improvements are experimental, we're actively seeking feedback from the community. We want to know how these changes perform in real-world scenarios before we make Claude 4 our default recommendation. Try it out for a few days, especially on complex codebases with lots of file editing, and let us know how it feels compared to Claude 3.7 or Gemini.

If you encounter any issues with Claude 4, please let us know. Feel free to reach us in our Discord, on r/cline, or use the /reportbug command in your chat to report them directly. This helps us track patterns and continue improving the experience.

Get Started Today

Cline 3.17.9 is available now through VS Code, Cursor, and Windsurf. Update today and let us know what you think.

-Nick 🫡