[BUG] Poor contrast in agent status colors on light cyan backgrounds

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?

The orange-grey color used for agent task status lines has extremely poor contrast against light cyan terminal backgrounds, making the text nearly invisible without highlighting. Additionally, there is no way to edit these text colors to resolve this issue on the user side.

Example of problematic output:
⏺ claude-code-guide(Look up color customization) Haiku 4.5
⎿ Done (3 tool uses · 27.5k tokens · 17s)

In this output, "Haiku 4.5" is unreadable.

Color Analysis:

• Terminal background: Light cyan (#1FCACC - bright turquoise/cyan)
• Claude Code's text: Orange-grey/desaturated orange (appears to be #B8860B to #CD853F range with reduced saturation)
• The similar luminosity levels combined with complementary orange/cyan colors create visual vibration effects that cause eye strain and make the text illegible

Important: Earlier versions of Claude Code did not have this issue. This appears to be a recent regression - the previous color scheme had adequate contrast across different terminal backgrounds.

<img width="971" height="348" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/c77a3e69-e3a0-42b2-8b30-8dba2c317c16" />

What Should Happen?

Agent status text should be readable on all common terminal backgrounds, including light-colored backgrounds. Specifically:

1. Colors should have sufficient contrast ratios (WCAG AA minimum: 4.5:1 for normal text)
2. Avoid complementary color combinations that cause visual vibration
3. Either revert to the previous color scheme that worked well, OR implement one of these solutions:

• Settings to customize ANSI color codes used by Claude Code
• Automatic contrast detection that adjusts colors based on terminal background
• Pre-defined color themes (light/dark mode) users can select
• Use terminal's default text color for all output

Error Messages/Logs

Steps to Reproduce

1. Set your terminal background to light cyan (#1FCACC or similar bright cyan/turquoise)
2. Run any Claude Code command that spawns an agent (e.g., ask a question that triggers the claude-code-guide agent)
3. Observe the agent status output line that shows the model name
4. Notice the orange-grey model name text (e.g., "Haiku 4.5") is nearly invisible against the background

Expected: Text should be clearly readable
Actual: Text blends into background and causes eye strain

Claude Model

Sonnet (default)

Is this a regression?

Yes, this worked in a previous version

Last Working Version

_No response_

Claude Code Version

2.0.76

Platform

Anthropic API

Operating System

macOS

Terminal/Shell

Terminal.app (macOS)

Additional Information

_No response_