TUI renders as garbled/sliced glyphs in VS Code integrated terminal (macOS 26.2, v2.1.148)

Summary

Claude Code's TUI output renders as visually corrupted text in the VS Code integrated terminal on macOS 26.2 — characters appear sliced, misaligned, and partially overwritten, making the transcript unreadable. The bottom status line remains legible, which suggests the issue is specific to the scrolling transcript region (likely Ink/redraw related) rather than the whole terminal.

Environment

• Claude Code version: 2.1.148 (native binary, arm64)
• Installed at ~/.local/share/claude/versions/2.1.148
• OS: macOS 26.2 (build 25C56), Darwin 25.2.0
• Architecture: Apple Silicon (arm64)
• Terminal: VS Code integrated terminal, version 1.121.0
• Shell: zsh
• TERM: xterm-256color
• System Node: v22.22.0 (note: Claude Code 2.1.x ships as a native binary, so the bundled runtime version is not directly inspectable from outside)

Reproduction

Occurs during normal interactive Claude Code sessions in the VS Code integrated terminal. The bug manifests as the conversation scrolls / redraws.

Expected

Readable monospace text in the transcript area.

Actual

Glyphs appear shredded and overlapping (screenshot to be attached via the issue page — gh CLI cannot upload images inline).

Notes / things worth investigating

• VS Code terminal GPU acceleration is a common culprit for this exact symptom (terminal.integrated.gpuAcceleration). Setting it to off or canvas may be a workaround — would be useful if maintainers can confirm.
• Possible interaction between the TUI's full-region redraw / ANSI sequences and VS Code's xterm.js renderer on macOS 26.2.
• I have not yet tested in Terminal.app / iTerm2 / Ghostty to isolate whether this is VS Code-specific.

Workaround (untested)

In VS Code settings: "terminal.integrated.gpuAcceleration": "off" then restart the integrated terminal.