Plan-mode sidebar comments ("Select any text to leave a comment for Claude") aren't delivered to the assistant
Summary
When a plan file is open in the Claude Code sidebar (with the hint text "Select any text to leave a comment for Claude"), selecting text and typing a comment appears to succeed in the UI — but the comment never reaches the assistant. The next user turn contains only the typed message, with no attachment, system reminder, or annotation payload carrying the selection-anchored comments.
Environment
- App: Claude Code Desktop
- Version: 2.1.111
- Entrypoint:
claude-desktop - OS: macOS 15 (Darwin 25.4.0)
- Plan file location:
~/.claude/plans/<slug>.md
Steps to reproduce
- Enter plan mode; the assistant writes a plan file (e.g.
~/.claude/plans/swirling-squishing-rossum.md) and callsExitPlanMode. - Approve the plan. The file is displayed in the sidebar with the hint "Select any text to leave a comment for Claude".
- Select a paragraph in the sidebar and type a comment.
- Send a next message referencing "my comments" (e.g. "look at my comments on stage 0 and update that part").
Expected: the assistant receives the selected-text + comment pairs, either as a structured attachment, a system reminder, or inline markup in the user turn.
Actual: the assistant only receives the typed message. No trace of the sidebar comments appears in:
- The plan file on disk (mtime and md5 unchanged).
- The session JSONL at
~/.claude/projects/<project-slug>/<session-id>.jsonl(searched forselectedText,annotation,comment, etc.). - Any other
~/.claude/directory (checkedsessions/,cache/, project memory dirs).
The assistant has no way to discover the comments and must ask the user to paste them into chat, which defeats the purpose of the feature.
Impact
- Users who use the sidebar comment affordance reasonably expect their comments to reach the assistant, since the UI explicitly invites them to leave comments "for Claude".
- Round-trip is wasted clarifying where comments are and asking the user to repeat them.
- Creates a user-perceived "Claude isn't reading what I wrote" experience.
Suggested fix direction
On message send, serialize any pending sidebar comments as a structured attachment (or inlined as <comment anchor="...">...</comment> system reminders) so the assistant can read them.
Notes
Filed on behalf of a user after the assistant was unable to locate comments the user had left via this feature. The user wrote: "the sidebar says 'Select any text to leave a comment for Claude' — that is how I left comments. There is no save button."
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