[BUG] - Link text discarded in terminal rendering, breaking semantic meaning of inline links

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?

Summary

When the model generates Markdown links with descriptive link text (e.g., quality open source software), Claude Code's terminal renderer displays only the URL, discarding the link text entirely. This creates a mismatch between what the model intends to communicate and what the user sees.

Environment

• Claude Code version: [current]
• Terminal: Konsole (also reproducible in other terminals)
• OS: Linux (Fedora 43)

Steps to Reproduce

1. Ask Claude Code a question that elicits a response with inline/contextual links
2. Observe the rendered output

Expected Behavior

The semantic content of the link text should be preserved. For example:

• Model generates: quality open source software
• User should see: quality open source software (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux)

Actual Behavior

• Model generates: quality open source software
• User sees: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux (underlined, no context)

The phrase "quality open source software" and its relationship to the URL is lost completely.

Impact

The model frequently uses "contextual linking" — a web writing convention where link text is grammatically integrated into prose and the URL points to an illustrative example. When the link text is stripped:

1. Sentences become incoherent or lose meaning
2. Users see unexplained URLs with no indication of relevance
3. The model's intended communication is corrupted

What Should Happen?

Either the model should know to not use contextual linking when outputting to Claude Code, or the output parser should convert the markdown [text](link) to the output "text (link)" (with both visible).

Error Messages/Logs

Steps to Reproduce

Run Claude Code in a terminal (in my case, default KDE terminal, but happens in all of them). Ask it to generate an example text including "contextual linking".

Claude Model

Opus

Is this a regression?

I don't know

Last Working Version

_No response_

Claude Code Version

2.0.76 (Claude Code)

Platform

Anthropic API

Operating System

Other Linux

Terminal/Shell

Other

Additional Information

_No response_