vercel@claude-plugins-official intercepts and breaks `vercel` CLI commands without clear error

Summary

The vercel@claude-plugins-official plugin intercepts vercel CLI shell commands and causes them to fail with opaque errors, leading to long debugging loops and wasted tokens.

What happened

When the plugin is enabled, running npx vercel --prod --yes from a project directory fails with:

No services configured. Add `experimentalServices` to vercel.json.

The plugin injects a <claude-code-hint v="1" type="plugin" value="vercel@claude-plugins-official" /> prefix into CLI output, indicating it is intercepting the command. Even after disabling the plugin in settings.json, the interception persisted within the same session.

The failure mode is silent — the error message does not indicate the plugin is the cause. The model kept retrying CLI variations (different flags, directories, API calls) for an extended period before the user intervened.

Root cause

The vercel@claude-plugins-official plugin registers a hook that overrides shell-level vercel CLI execution. When the plugin is not fully authenticated or the project has certain configurations (rootDirectory, etc.), the intercepted command fails with a misleading Vercel-internal error rather than a clear "plugin is interfering" message.

Impact

• Model looped on broken CLI approaches for 30+ minutes, wasting significant tokens
• A deployment that should have been a single git push became a multi-step debugging session
• Disabling the plugin in settings.json mid-session had no effect (requires session restart)

Suggested fixes

1. When a plugin hook intercepts a CLI command and causes a failure, the error message should clearly state the plugin name and suggest disabling it — not surface a downstream error
2. Plugin settings changes should take effect immediately without requiring a session restart
3. If a plugin requires authentication before intercepting commands, it should not intercept until authenticated — unauthenticated interception should be a no-op passthrough
4. Consider surfacing: "vercel@claude-plugins-official" is intercepting this command. If unexpected, disable the plugin in settings.

Environment

• Claude Code (Windows 11)
• Plugin: vercel@claude-plugins-official (enabled in ~/.claude/settings.json)
• Project: Git-connected Vercel project with rootDirectory: frontend