Feature request: Use zsh (or login shell) for Bash tool on macOS
Resolved 💬 4 comments Opened Apr 6, 2026 by boundedagency Closed Apr 6, 2026
macOS ships bash 3.2.57 (2007) due to GPLv3 licensing, and Apple will never update it — they switched the default shell to zsh back in Catalina (2019). The Bash tool currently hardcodes bash, which means on macOS you're stuck with a 19-year-old shell that lacks features like associative arrays (declare -A), mapfile, readarray, and other bash 4+ additions.
Since virtually every macOS user's login shell is zsh, it would make sense for the Bash tool to either:
- Use the user's configured login shell (from
$SHELLor/etc/passwd), or - At minimum, default to zsh on macOS
Related issues: #40653 (Bash tool ignores login shell), #31437 (bash 3.2 runtime issues)
This issue was raised with AI assistance (Claude Code).
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