Show intent/reasoning in permission prompt dialogs

Resolved 💬 2 comments Opened Mar 24, 2026 by osanha Closed Mar 25, 2026

Problem

When Claude Code triggers a permission request (e.g., to run a shell command), the dialog shows the command but not why Claude wants to run it. This makes it hard for users to make informed allow/deny decisions.

Current behavior

  • Permission dialog shows the command (e.g., ls -la /some/path)
  • No explanation of intent or context is provided
  • User must guess why Claude wants to run this command

Expected behavior

  • The permission dialog should include a brief explanation of why Claude is running the command
  • Example: "Checking project structure to detect dev server configurations"ls -la /some/path

Notes

  • The description already exists in Claude's tool call (the description field in the Bash tool) — it just isn't surfaced in the permission UI
  • This is especially important for commands that touch the filesystem or run executables, where understanding intent is critical for security decisions

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