Bold markdown text (**text**) invisible on iTerm2 with light/white background

Bug Description

Markdown bold text (**text**) rendered by Claude Code is completely invisible on iTerm2 with a white/light background. The text exists (visible when selected/highlighted via double-click), but its foreground color matches the background color.

Environment

• Claude Code version: 2.1.50
• Terminal: iTerm2 (macOS, Darwin 25.3.0)
• Background color: near-white (RGB 0.98, 0.98, 0.98)
• Foreground color: near-black (RGB 0.06, 0.06, 0.06)
• Bold Color: near-black (RGB 0.06, 0.06, 0.06)

Steps to Reproduce

1. Open iTerm2 with a light/white background color profile
2. Run Claude Code
3. Ask Claude to respond with markdown containing **bold text**
4. Bold text is invisible against the white background

Observed Behavior

• **bold text** and ***bold+italic*** are invisible (foreground matches background)
• *italic*, ` backtick `, and normal text are all visible
• When text is selected (double-click), the bold text becomes visible - it appears to be rendered in a color very close to white

What Was Tried

• Toggling iTerm2 "Use Bright Bold" (on/off) — no change in behavior
• Bold Color is correctly set to near-black in iTerm2 profile
• ANSI Color 15 (Bright White) is pure white (#ffffff), which could cause the issue if bold text is rendered using this color, but toggling "Use Bright Bold" off did not resolve it

Expected Behavior

Bold text should be visible and distinguishable from normal text on light backgrounds.

Related Issues

• #3215 (closed/locked) — white diff text invisible on light terminals
• #4948 (closed/locked) — /cost and /model white text invisible on light theme
• #20126 (open) — inconsistent bolding and blue text in VS Code terminal

Note: #3215 and #4948 are locked so cannot comment there. This issue may share the same root cause (Claude Code outputting a foreground color that is near-white for certain styled text, regardless of terminal theme settings).