[BUG] `claude respawn --all` advertised in --help but rejected as "unknown option" (v2.1.150)

Resolved 💬 1 comment Opened May 26, 2026 by kai-cupist Closed Jun 27, 2026

Summary

claude respawn --all is documented at https://code.claude.com/docs/en/agent-view
and advertised by --help, but the argument parser in v2.1.150 rejects the
flag, so there's no way to restart every background session at once.

Environment

  • Claude Code: 2.1.150 (Claude Code)
  • OS: macOS (Darwin 24.6.0, arm64)
  • Binary: /Applications/cmux.app/Contents/Resources/bin/claude (cmux-bundled),

same behavior via direct path and through the cmux zsh wrapper

Reproduction

$ claude --version
2.1.150 (Claude Code)

$ claude respawn --help
Usage: claude respawn <id>|--all

  Restart a background session (or all of them) so it picks up the current
  Claude binary.

$ claude respawn --all
error: unknown option '--all'
$ echo $?
1

$ /Applications/cmux.app/Contents/Resources/bin/claude respawn --all
error: unknown option '--all'

$ claude respawn -- --all     # try escaping past option parser
# falls through to interactive chat, exit 0 — also wrong

Expected

Per the agent-view docs:

claude respawn --all — Restart every running session, e.g. to move all sessions onto an updated Claude Code binary at once

…the command should iterate over every session in the supervisor's roster
and respawn each.

Actual

  • The flag is not registered with the command parser.
  • --help text still advertises the <id>|--all form.
  • No release between v2.1.140 and v2.1.150 mentions adding --all to

respawn in the changelog, suggesting the help string shipped ahead of
the parser registration.

Workaround

claude agents --json | jq -r '.[].sessionId' | xargs -I{} claude respawn {}

Related but distinct

  • #59806 — respawn returns exit 0 but session stays stuck (different bug)
  • #58943 — --mcp-config/--settings lost across /bg → respawn (closed)
  • #61230 — agent view missing respawn action on Bedrock (different surface)

View original on GitHub ↗

This issue has 1 comment on GitHub. Read the full discussion on GitHub ↗