ESC and Ctrl+C fail to interrupt during active tool calls

Resolved 💬 4 comments Opened Jan 11, 2026 by cbzdurek Closed Feb 27, 2026

Description

ESC and Ctrl+C do not reliably interrupt Claude Code when tool calls are actively running. The user has to resort to killing the terminal or using pkill -f "claude" from another terminal.

Steps to Reproduce

  1. Start Claude Code session
  2. Run multiple parallel tool calls (e.g., SSH commands to remote systems)
  3. Press ESC or Ctrl+C to interrupt
  4. Observe that nothing happens or there is significant delay

Expected Behavior

  • ESC should immediately abort the current operation
  • Ctrl+C should immediately interrupt and return to prompt

Actual Behavior

  • ESC does not respond or requires multiple presses
  • Ctrl+C is ignored while tool calls are running
  • Only way to stop is killing the terminal or pkill -f "claude"

Environment

  • Claude Code CLI
  • macOS (Darwin 25.2.0)
  • Multiple parallel Bash/SSH tool calls

Impact

This breaks the user's ability to control the session, forcing terminal kills which lose context.

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Reported via Claude Code

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