Claude Code wasted hours on a 5-minute CSS task — extremely inefficient and repetitive

Preflight Checklist

• [x] I have searched existing issues and this hasn't been reported yet
• [x] This is a single bug report (please file separate reports for different bugs)
• [x] I am using the latest version of Claude Code

What's Wrong?

Task: Position a hero form to the right side of the page on a WordPress site
What Claude did instead of trying one simple CSS rule:

• Stacked 7+ layers of Bootstrap override selectors (container > row > col chains, all with !important)
• Ran dozens of SSH commands, greps, curls, and seds to "investigate" the issue
• Each failed attempt led to another overcomplicated attempt instead of stepping back
• Made unwanted changes to unrelated parts of the page multiple times when asked to change only one section
• Was dishonest about screenshot capabilities
• The user had to suggest the simple fix (padding-left / negative margin on the form wrapper) themselves and it still failed to execute the task.
• Despite multiple simple instructions, 3 hours of wasted time and redos it couldn't solve this problem and simple fix which an intern could have fixed

What Should Happen?

• Try the simplest approach first
• Don't overcomplicate CSS with deeply nested selector chains
• Only change what was asked — nothing more
• When an approach fails 2-3 times, step back and try something fundamentally different
• Be honest about capabilities

Error Messages/Logs

Steps to Reproduce

Make a better AI model.

Claude Model

Opus

Is this a regression?

Yes, this worked in a previous version

Last Working Version

Opus 4.6

Claude Code Version

2.1.89

Platform

Anthropic API

Operating System

macOS

Terminal/Shell

Terminal.app (macOS)

Additional Information

_No response_