[BUG] Claude Code makes high-frequency version polling requests (~2-4/min) to GCS

Preflight Checklist

• [x] I have searched existing issues and this hasn't been reported yet
• [x] This is a single bug report (please file separate reports for different bugs)
• [x] I am using the latest version of Claude Code

What's Wrong?

Claude Code makes repeated background GET requests to a GCS bucket to fetch
its current version string. These fire in pairs roughly every 4–6 minutes,
even with no active prompts or tool calls in progress.

URL: https://storage.googleapis.com/claude-code-dist-86c565f3-f756-42ad-8dfa-d59b1c096819/claude-code-releases/…
Response: 2.1.75 (6 bytes — a bare version string)
Frequency: ~2–4 requests/min in pairs
Duration: ~98–134ms each

What Should Happen?

Version checks should happen once at startup or on a long interval (hourly at most), not continuously throughout a session.

Error Messages/Logs

Steps to Reproduce

1. Start any Claude Code session
2. Monitor outbound network traffic
3. Observe repeated GET requests to the GCS URL above firing every ~2 minutes

with no user interaction required

Claude Model

Not sure / Multiple models

Is this a regression?

I don't know

Last Working Version

_No response_

Claude Code Version

2.1.74

Platform

Anthropic API

Operating System

macOS

Terminal/Shell

Terminal.app (macOS)

Additional Information

<img width="3788" height="4351" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/6508a6e2-dcca-4c42-8b9f-aa9be3aa355d" />

<img width="663" height="211" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/81122b36-45f4-427a-a749-63b48b2750e7" />

Requests appear in pairs at these timestamps (2026-03-13, all within a single session with no active prompts):

19:56:12 ×2, 20:00:00 ×2, 20:26:12 ×2, 20:30:37 ×2, 20:56:12 ×2

Detected by intercepting outbound traffic with a deny-by-default network sandbox (Greywall). This polling will silently fail in firewalled or audited environments unless the GCS domain is explicitly allow-listed, which isn't documented.

Suggested fix:

• Reduce to once per session or per hour
• Document required outbound domains
• Add opt-out: --no-update-check or CLAUDE_DISABLE_UPDATE_CHECK=1