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
descriptionfield 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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