Permission mode icon (U+23FA ⏺) renders as two garbled boxes on macOS 12 in terminal
Description
The permission mode status indicator in the bottom status bar renders as two garbled boxes (??) on macOS 12 instead of the intended icon.
Root Cause
Claude Code uses U+23FA (⏺ BLACK CIRCLE FOR RECORD) as the permission mode icon on macOS (darwin platform), while using U+25CF (● BLACK CIRCLE) on other platforms:
tL = platform === "darwin" ? "\u23FA" : "\u25CF"
U+23FA is in the emoji range (U+23F8–U+23FA) and macOS 12 terminals attempt to render it as a 2-cell wide emoji. Since no terminal font covers it at double-width in this context, it displays as two replacement boxes.
Steps to Reproduce
- Run Claude Code on macOS 12 (Monterey) in any terminal (iTerm2, Terminal.app)
- Enable "bypass permissions" mode
- Observe the bottom status bar — the permission mode icon shows as
??(two boxes)
Environment
- macOS: 12.6 (Monterey / Darwin 21.6.0)
- Claude Code: v2.1.104
- Terminals tested: iTerm2, macOS Terminal.app
- Fonts tested: JetBrainsMono Nerd Font, default system fonts
- Result: Garbled on all combinations
Expected Behavior
The icon should render correctly, or fall back to a plain ASCII/text character that all terminals can display.
Suggested Fix
Use U+25CF (●) consistently across all platforms, or add U+FE0E (text variation selector) after U+23FA to force text presentation:
tL = "\u23FA\uFE0E" // force text presentation
// or
tL = "\u25CF" // consistent cross-platformThis issue has 3 comments on GitHub. Read the full discussion on GitHub ↗