[BUG] Terminal bell ringing repeatedly while Claude Code is thinking

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?

In a recent Claude update (not exactly sure which version it started with, but it's only started in the past day or so as of 11/25/25), instead of Claude ringing my terminal bell once when it's either completed a task or is prompting for more input, it has started to repeatedly ring the terminal bell over and over while it's thinking. It seems like it rings the bell pretty much anytime it starts a new tool while it's processing a longer task. This is not great since it's distracting and makes it hard for me to tell when I actually need to return to Claude to guide its next step.

I'm running Claude 2.0.53 on macOS 26.1 using iTerm 2 3.6.5. I have not updated either macOS or iTerm2 recently, so I don't think either of those updates would have caused the behavior change I've seen with the terminal bell.

What Should Happen?

The terminal bell should only ring when Claude has finished a task or is prompting for further input.

Error Messages/Logs

Steps to Reproduce

1. Start Claude in iTerm2
2. Give it a long task to work on so it has to think for a while

As it works, I hear the terminal bell fire repeatedly (and system notifications displayed, since I have that pref enabled in iTerm2). In previous versions, I would only get a single bell once Claude had completed the task.

Claude Model

Opus

Is this a regression?

Yes, this worked in a previous version

Last Working Version

Not exactly sure what my prior version was that worked, not too many prior to 2.0.53

Claude Code Version

2.0.53

Platform

Anthropic API

Operating System

macOS

Terminal/Shell

iTerm2

Additional Information

I currently have notifications set to "Auto" in the /config interface. I have not yet tested other settings here, or different terminal apps.