[BUG] Bash commands hang indefinitely in VSCode

Found 3 possible duplicate issues:

1. https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/11689
2. https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/3153
3. https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/12353

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🤖 Generated with Claude Code

I had a similar issue and after quite a lot of debugging, I realized that it was my bash profile setup that caused the issue. I'll add the summary we created after that here, in case it might be the same issue.
The key takeaway: Have Claude look into shell startup issues.

Claude Code Bash Delays: Root Cause & Resolution

Summary

Claude Code bash commands hanging indefinitely in GitHub Codespaces was caused by dotfiles shell configuration, not a Claude Code bug.

Root Cause

.bash_profile contained exec /bin/zsh -l without an interactive shell guard:

• Claude Code spawns non-interactive login shells for bash commands
• exec /bin/zsh -l caused bash to immediately replace itself with zsh
• Oh-My-Zsh async functions loaded in this context created infinite loops
• Result: commands appeared to hang indefinitely

Fix

Add interactive shell guard in .bash_profile:

# Only switch to zsh for interactive sessions
if [[ $- == *i* ]]; then
    exec /bin/zsh -l
fi

Key Lessons

1. Claude Code shell behavior: Spawns non-interactive login shells — dotfiles must handle this gracefully
2. Environment-specific issues: Problem only appeared in Codespaces with custom dotfiles, not in fresh environments
3. Misleading symptoms: The "Inferring..." delay looked like AI inference overhead, but was actually shell initialization hanging

Debugging Approach That Worked

• Tested across multiple environments (Windows native, WSL, Codespaces)
• Added logging to shell initialization files to trace execution
• Isolated the issue to dotfiles by testing with/without custom configuration

Obsolete Workarounds (No Longer Needed)

The following workarounds were developed before root cause was found — they're unnecessary now:

• Disabling Bash tool in .claude/settings.local.json
• CLAUDE.md instructions for alternative tools
• Pipe-to-file pattern for command execution
• Ctrl+B background mode for every command

Thanks - yeah this wasn't the problem. I also assumed it was a shell/profile/rc problem, but after debugging for an hour with Claude helping me, I don't believe that's the case anymore. We set things up to use an incredibly minimal .bashrc and it's still hanging (even with full VSCode reload, etc.).

I'm not sure this is gonna be helpful, so closing. I'm going to try to reproduce more reliably.

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