Background task output file grows unbounded (224GB single file)

Description

A single task output file in Claude Code's temp directory grew to 224GB, filling the entire disk and making both Claude Code and the system unusable.

Details

• File: /private/tmp/claude-501/<project>/tasks/b3alxwr87.output
• Size: 224GB
• The file was actively growing (timestamped today)
• Total /private/tmp/claude-501/ usage was 222GB+, almost entirely from this one file
• Other project temp directories were 0B–208K, so this is isolated to one runaway task

Impact

• macOS reported 0 bytes available, blocking all disk writes
• Claude Code commands failed with ENOSPC: no space left on device
• Standard shell commands also failed
• Had to manually rm -rf the temp directory to recover

Expected behavior

Task output files should have a size limit or be cleaned up when they grow beyond a reasonable threshold. A single background task should not be able to consume hundreds of GB of disk space.

Environment

• macOS 15 (Darwin 25.3.0)
• Apple Silicon (arm64)
• Claude Code (latest as of 2026-03-10)
• claude-opus-4-6