[BUG] Edit tool cannot distinguish between straight and curved quotes in replacements

Same problem with different quotes: https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/8234

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This is still occurring for me.

I will just add: I suspect that this is model (Sonnet) bug as opencode.ai with Sonnet has the same problem

This is really annoying. Claude Opus 4.5 can see the difference between ' (straight apostrophe) (U+0027) and ’ (curly apostrophe) (U+2019) when reading, but cannot write curly apostrophes - they get somehow always converted to straight apostrophes

As a workaround here is a simple SKILL.md file content that teach Claude how to write properly curly apostrophe via a placeholder then a sed command:

---
name: curly-apostrophe
description: Auto-triggers when writing or editing text content that requires curly apostrophes. Teaches Claude to use placeholder and post-processing.
---

Curly Apostrophe Skill

Problem

Claude cannot directly write curly apostrophes (U+2019) through Write/Edit tools - they get converted to straight apostrophes (U+0027).

Solution

Use the placeholder __CURLY__ (double underscore + CURLY + double underscore), then post-process with bash.

---

Workflow

Step 1: Use Placeholder

When writing text that needs curly apostrophes, use __CURLY__ instead:

| Target text | Claude writes |
|----------|---------------|
| don’t | don__CURLY__t |
| it’s | it__CURLY__s |

Step 2: Post-Process

After each Write or Edit operation on a file containing __CURLY__, IMMEDIATELY run:

CURLY=$'\u2019' && sed -i "s/__CURLY__/${CURLY}/g" <filepath>

Step 3: Verify (Optional)

Verify the replacement worked by checking for e2 80 99 bytes:

hexdump -C <filepath> | grep "e2 80 99"

---

Example

# Before (what Claude writes)
Don__CURLY__t forget to check the student__CURLY__s answer.

# After running sed command
Don’t forget to check the student’s answer.

---

Important Notes

1. Always run sed immediately after Write/Edit - do not batch multiple files
2. The placeholder __CURLY__ is case-sensitive
3. Works for any file type (.php, .html.twig, .md, .txt, etc.)
4. The $'\u2019' bash syntax outputs UTF-8 bytes e2 80 99
5. Do NOT run sed on this SKILL.md file - the placeholders here are documentation

It's a good idea, but unfortunately, it requires explicitly stating in the prompt to preserve curly apostrophes, otherwise the skill won't trigger. Even worse, Claude sometimes considers it unnecessary to use because, as you pointed out, he can read and manipulate curly apostrophes internally, but when he uses Write, the curly apostrophes are replaced with straight apostrophes without his knowledge.

For those interested, here are ready-to-use skills for correcting curly apostrophes, compatible with Mac (using Perl because there's a difference in arguments between BSD and GNU sed).

You need to extract the version you want (English or French or both) to ~/.claude/skills/ to activate it.

To encourage the skill to activate automatically, I recommend adding a directive like this to your ~/.claude/claude.md:

In English:
**Always use** the curly-apostrophe skill when editing text to preserve curved apostrophes and respect typographic conventions.

In French:
**Toujours utiliser** le skill apostrophes-courbes lors d'édition de texte afin de préserver les apostrophes courbes et pour respecter les conventions typographiques

Verify that it's working correctly by asking Claude to translate a file containing curly apostrophes, such as the reference.md file from the skill.

apostrophes-courbes.zip
curly-apostrophe.zip

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ugh.. how is this automatically closed just because no one looked at it?

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