Support Option+Delete / Ctrl+Delete for word-by-word deletion in input editor
Feature Request
The Claude Code input editor currently only supports character-by-character deletion with Backspace/Delete. Standard macOS word-deletion shortcuts — Option+Delete (backward kill word) and Control+Delete — do not work, deleting only a single character instead.
These shortcuts work everywhere else in macOS (Terminal with zsh/bash, text editors, browsers, etc.) and their absence makes editing longer prompts in Claude Code noticeably slower.
Expected Behavior
- Option+Delete (⌥⌫): Delete the previous word (backward-kill-word)
- Control+Delete / Control+Backspace: Delete the previous word
- Option+Forward Delete (⌥⌦ / ⌥fn⌫): Delete the next word (kill-word)
Current Behavior
All of these key combinations delete only a single character, same as a plain Backspace/Delete press.
Context
The input editor is a Node.js TUI that handles its own key events, bypassing the shell's readline/bindkey system. Users who have bindkey '\e\x7f' backward-kill-word in their .zshrc and "Use Option as Meta key" enabled in Terminal.app still can't use word deletion inside Claude Code.
Environment
- macOS (Apple Terminal, but likely affects all terminal emulators)
- Claude Code CLI
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