[MODEL] Claude Code should follow logical implications when user identifies contradictions

Preflight Checklist

• [x] I have searched existing issues for similar behavior reports
• [x] This report does NOT contain sensitive information (API keys, passwords, etc.)

Type of Behavior Issue

Other unexpected behavior

What You Asked Claude to Do

I was debugging a Terraform "Request Body is empty" error. After Claude suggested it might be a race condition, I challenged this by saying "Terraform should know the order to apply things, right?" - pointing out a logical contradiction.

I expected Claude to investigate what technical details would resolve this contradiction (i.e., if Terraform handles dependencies correctly, but there's still a race condition, the dependency declarations must be incomplete).

What Claude Actually Did

Claude agreed that "Terraform handles dependencies correctly" but didn't follow through on what this implied. It didn't check the depends_on blocks or investigate why there would be a race condition if dependencies were properly declared.

The root cause (missing module.enable_bucket_encryption in a depends_on block) was only discovered much later after multiple destroy/recreate cycles over two days.

Expected Behavior

When a user who has stated limited domain expertise identifies a logical contradiction, Claude should:

1. Recognize this as a signal to investigate deeper
2. Reason: "If X is true and Y is true, what technical details would need to be wrong?"
3. Proactively check those technical details

In this case: "If Terraform handles dependencies AND there's a race condition, then dependencies must not be fully declared → Check the depends_on blocks"

Files Affected

Permission Mode

Accept Edits was OFF (manual approval required)

Can You Reproduce This?

Haven't tried to reproduce

Steps to Reproduce

_No response_

Claude Model

Sonnet

Relevant Conversation

Impact

Low - Minor inconvenience

Claude Code Version

2.1.34

Platform

Anthropic API

Additional Context

I asked Claude to write this issue, so hopefully it did a decent job explaining the situation.