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
- Start Claude Code session
- Run multiple parallel tool calls (e.g., SSH commands to remote systems)
- Press ESC or Ctrl+C to interrupt
- 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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