Auto-updater leaves orphan TCC entries for every previous CLI version on macOS

Bug report — paste into https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues

Title: Auto-updater leaves orphan TCC entries for every previous CLI version on macOS

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Summary

The Claude Code CLI bundled with the Claude Desktop app (macOS) installs each new version into a versioned subdirectory:

~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude-code/<VERSION>/claude.app

When a new version is staged, the user is re-prompted for the privacy permissions that the prior version had already been granted (Accessibility, AppleEvents/Automation, Files & Folders, Removable Volumes, etc.). Each grant becomes a new path-based row in macOS's TCC database. The updater never tells macOS to revoke the prior version's rows, so they accumulate as orphans whose binary no longer exists on disk.

After ~13 CLI version updates on my system, ~70 orphan rows had piled up across multiple Privacy & Security panels, plus one in the system-level TCC.db. The Privacy & Security panels (Files & Folders, Automation, Local Network, etc.) showed dozens of blank-icon "claude" / "claude.app" entries.

The homebrew install path (/opt/homebrew/lib/node_modules/@anthropic-ai/claude-code/bin/claude.exe) does not exhibit this — its path is stable across updates and TCC reuses the row.

Reproduction

1. Use Claude Desktop and let the embedded CLI auto-update through ~5+ versions.
2. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Files & Folders (or Automation, Local Network, Full Disk Access).
3. Observe multiple blank-icon "claude" / "claude.app" entries, each corresponding to an old version's install path.

Verify in the TCC database:

sqlite3 -header -column ~/Library/Application\ Support/com.apple.TCC/TCC.db "
  SELECT service, client, client_type
  FROM access
  WHERE client LIKE '/Users/%/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude-code/%/claude'
    AND client_type = 1;
"

(Requires Full Disk Access on the running shell.)

Expected behavior

When the auto-updater stages a new version and removes the previous one, it should:

Option A — Call tccutil for each TCC service the old version had records in:

tccutil reset SystemPolicyDocumentsFolder /Users/.../claude-code/<OLDVER>/claude
tccutil reset SystemPolicyDesktopFolder   /Users/.../claude-code/<OLDVER>/claude
…

(Though note: tccutil reset resets by bundle ID, not arbitrary path, so this may require direct DB manipulation by an entitled helper.)

Option B — Install at a stable, versioned-via-symlink path:

~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude-code/current/claude.app   ← symlink to versioned dir

…and request TCC permissions only via the current path. New versions update the symlink target; TCC keys reuse.

Workaround (mitigation, not a fix)

I've automated cleanup on my machine via a launchd agent that runs monthly. It:

• Enumerates path-based TCC rows under ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude-code/*/claude
• Tests whether each path still exists on disk
• DELETEs rows for missing paths

This requires the running script to have Full Disk Access. It does not clean the system-level TCC.db (would need root).

The script and launchd plist are local — happy to share if useful.

Environment

• macOS: <fill in: sw_vers -productVersion and build>
• Claude Desktop version: <Settings → About>
• Embedded CLI version: <~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude-code/<current>/claude --version>
• Homebrew npm-installed CLI version (if applicable): <claude --version>

Severity

Cosmetic / quality of life, not a security issue per se — the orphan rows are inert because their code-signing anchors are broken. But the Privacy & Security panels become very hard to audit when filled with phantom rows, and most users have no straightforward way to clean them (the macOS UI offers no per-row delete on Automation/Files & Folders/Local Network).