claude-code - 💡(How to fix) Fix Permission/question dialogs do not render in Ctrl+O transcript mode (UI hangs indefinitely)

Summary

When the transcript view is toggled on via Ctrl+O, any interactive dialog that Claude Code needs to display — a tool permission prompt or a question dialog — is never rendered. The UI hangs indefinitely on the tool's ⎿ Waiting… state with the spinner running.

Critically, there is no recovery: toggling Ctrl+O back off to leave transcript mode does not cause the dialog to appear. Once a dialog is suppressed by being raised while in transcript mode, it is gone for the remainder of that tool call. The only way out is to press ESC to cancel the pending tool call entirely.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Start an interactive Claude Code session.
2. Press Ctrl+O to enter transcript mode.
3. Trigger any action that requires a permission prompt — e.g. have Claude run a non-allowlisted Bash command such as writing to a new file path.
4. Observe the UI: no dialog appears, only ⎿ Waiting… + spinner.
5. Press Ctrl+O again to leave transcript mode. The dialog still does not appear — the call remains stuck on Waiting….

Repro gotcha: the action must be one that genuinely prompts. A command already approved earlier in the session (or otherwise allowlisted) runs without raising a dialog, so it completes normally and the bug does not manifest — a false negative. Use a fresh, non-allowlisted action each attempt.

Expected Behavior

The tool-use permission dialog (or question dialog) is displayed and the user can respond.

Actual Behavior

No dialog appears. The UI shows only the pending tool call and a spinner:

● Bash(mkdir -p /home/david/Desktop/claude/misc/bug-repro-test && echo "created")
  ⎿  Waiting…

* Fluttering… (36s · ↓ 185 tokens)

The spinner/timer counts up indefinitely. The dialog is never drawn, toggling Ctrl+O off does not bring it back, and ESC to cancel the tool call is the only recovery.

Confirmed for both dialog types

Reproduced with (a) a Bash tool permission prompt and (b) a question dialog (AskUserQuestion). Both hang identically, so this is not specific to permission prompts — it affects any modal raised while in transcript mode.

Recording

Asciinema capture of the hang: https://asciinema.org/a/uz907EO01H8gcEQr

Environment

• Claude Code version: 2.1.158 (native install at ~/.local/share/claude/versions/2.1.158)
• Node: v20.10.0
• OS: Linux (Debian) — Linux 7.0.7+deb14-amd64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Debian 7.0.7-1 x86_64
• Terminal: Ghostty 1.3.1 (stable channel)
  • app runtime: GTK 4 (build 4.22.2 / runtime 4.22.4), libadwaita 1.9.0
  • renderer: OpenGL (renderer.generic.Renderer), font engine: fontconfig/freetype
  • libxev: io_uring; Zig 0.15.2; build mode ReleaseFast
• Terminal env: TERM=xterm-ghostty, TERM_PROGRAM=ghostty, COLORTERM=truecolor
• Ghostty config (relevant): shell-integration-features = no-cursor,title,path,ssh-terminfo,ssh-env
• Shell: zsh 5.9
• Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8

Reproducibility

Consistently reproducible, provided the triggering action actually raises a dialog (see repro gotcha above).