[BUG]Cowork: guest Claude Code exits with "Failed to create bridge sockets after 5 attempts" (code 1, ~1s after spawn)

Preflight Checklist

• [x] I have searched existing issues and this hasn't been reported yet
• [x] This is a single bug report (please file separate reports for different bugs)
• [x] I am using the latest version of Claude Code

What's Wrong?

Summary

Every Cowork session on my machine fails the same way: the VM boots cleanly, the guest connects, SDK
installs, OAuth is approved, the Claude Code process spawns — then immediately exits with code 1 after
~1 second, emitting Error: Failed to create bridge sockets after 5 attempts on stderr. No user code
ever runs.

This has been 100% reproducible across ~12 session attempts today, all failing identically.

## Environment

• Claude Desktop: 1.3036.0 (build cf521c, released 2026-04-16T16:17:33Z)
• Claude account email: us.nazir@gmail.com
• Claude Code (in VM / guest SDK): 2.1.111
• Claude Code (host, Homebrew): 2.1.92
• VM bundle: 5680b11bcdab215cccf07e0c0bd1bd9213b0c25d
• macOS: 26.3 (build 25D125)
• Hardware: Apple Silicon (M2, arm64)
• Kernel: Darwin 25.3.0

## Reproduction

1. Open Claude Desktop.
2. Start any new Cowork session (any trusted folder; see "What I tried" below).
3. Session immediately errors with Claude Code process exited with code 1.

## Relevant log excerpts

From ~/Library/Logs/Claude/cowork_vm_node.log — a typical failed session:

``
[VM:start] Beginning startup, bundlePath=.../vm_bundles/claudevm.bundle
[VM:start] Bundle version: 5680b11bcdab215cccf07e0c0bd1bd9213b0c25d
[VM:steps] vm_boot completed (176ms)
[VM:steps] guest_vsock_connect completed (5550ms)
[VM:steps] guest_ready completed (402ms)
[VM:steps] install_ca_certificates completed (0ms)
[VM] API reachability: REACHABLE
[VM:steps] sdk_install completed (0ms)
[VM:start] Startup complete, total time: 7209ms
[Spawn:config] Creating spawn function for process=cool-magical-curie, isResume=false, mounts=7
[Spawn:vm] OAuth token approved with MITM proxy
[Spawn:vm] Spawn succeeded in 50ms
[vm-stderr 2e50647d] Error: Failed to create bridge sockets after 5 attempts
[Process:2e50647d...] Exited, code=1, signal=null, duration=1119ms, oom=false
``

Same Failed to create bridge sockets after 5 attempts error appears on every one of the ~12 session
attempts in the log today (session IDs: c99c2045, c37c1e7f, 84a0a66a, 373e9a91, c7c43b8e, 0995571f,
924937d0, 57e75560, c2ab895a, ed194367, a8d5711c, 2e50647d).

## What I tried

• Cleared ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/{Cache,vm_bundles,sessions,local-agent-mode-sessions}

and relaunched → same error, new session name.

• Changed localAgentModeTrustedFolders in claude_desktop_config.json from `~/Desktop/untitled

folder (which had a space and was on a Desktop with iCloud sync history) to a clean local path
~/Documents/cowork` → same error, new session name.

Failure mode is identical before and after both attempts.

## Notes

• Host-side components all look healthy: VM boots in ~176ms, guest vsock connects, networking reaches

CONNECTED, API is REACHABLE, SDK install completes, OAuth approval succeeds, process spawn succeeds
in 50ms.

• The failure is strictly inside the guest Claude Code binary when it tries to set up its bridge

sockets.

• Not a stale-install issue: Claude Desktop 1.3036.0 build cf521c was released 2026-04-16 — the

same day as this report.

• Likely not the same root cause as #23991 / #24190 / #24483 / #24549 (those looked VM-provisioning

related; my VM provisions fine).

What Should Happen?

should work

Error Messages/Logs

Steps to Reproduce

should work

Claude Model

None

Is this a regression?

Yes, this worked in a previous version

Last Working Version

_No response_

Claude Code Version

last

Platform

Anthropic API

Operating System

macOS

Terminal/Shell

Terminal.app (macOS)

Additional Information

_No response_