claude-code - 💡(How to fix) Fix Cannot paste OAuth code into auth prompt (bracketed paste not handled) [19 comments, 17 participants]

Bug: Cannot paste OAuth code into Claude Code auth prompt

Environment:

• Claude Code CLI (latest as of 2026-04-14)
• Tested on: Kitty 0.46.2, Emacs Eat terminal
• OS: Arch Linux x86_64, kernel 6.19.10, i3wm, X11

What happened:

Claude Code was working fine ~8 hours ago. Went to sleep, did not update the system (no pacman upgrades overnight, verified via /var/log/pacman.log). Woke up, reconnected to an SSH server (office-jump) where a Claude Code session needed re-authentication. Could not paste the OAuth code into the Eat terminal auth prompt. Switched to a Kitty terminal and tried middle-mouse-button paste -- also failed. Typing characters works fine at the same prompt; only paste is broken.

This was working earlier the same day with the same setup.

Steps to reproduce:

1. Run claude or claude auth login when authentication is needed
2. Browser opens, authenticate, copy the OAuth code
3. Return to terminal, attempt to paste the code (Ctrl+Shift+V in Kitty, or middle-click for X11 primary selection, or C-y / M-x clipboard-yank in Emacs Eat)

Expected: Code is pasted into the prompt

Actual: Nothing appears. No error, no text. The prompt remains empty as if no paste occurred.

Verification that clipboard works:

• xclip -selection clipboard -o returns the correct OAuth code
• xclip -selection primary -o also returns the code
• Paste works normally in every other application and prompt
• Only the Claude Code OAuth input prompt is affected

Details:

• Typing the code character by character WORKS at the same prompt
• Tested in two independent terminal emulators (Kitty 0.46.2 and Emacs Eat) -- same failure in both
• No system updates between working and broken states
• The Claude Code process itself was restarted (new session, not a stale process)

Likely cause: The OAuth code input prompt may not handle bracketed paste mode. Modern terminals wrap pasted content in ESC[200~ / ESC[201~ escape sequences. If the prompt reads stdin in raw mode without interpreting these sequences, the pasted text is silently dropped while typed characters pass through fine.

Workarounds found:

1. Authenticate on another machine and copy ~/.claude/.credentials.json to the target machine
2. Pipe the code: echo 'CODE' | claude auth login (accepts the code via stdin)