Fable 5: assistant text emitted before a tool call in the same turn is not shown to the user, but the model assumes it was

Environment

• Claude Code CLI (terminal), macOS (Darwin 24.6.0)
• Model: Fable 5 (claude-fable-5[1m])

Description

During an interactive session, the assistant (model Fable 5) wrote a substantial markdown deliverable — a multi-paragraph document — as plain text output, then in the same turn called the AskUserQuestion tool to ask me to confirm that document.

The text block was never rendered in the terminal. All I saw was the AskUserQuestion dialog referring to a document I had never seen — I had to tell the model "you didn't show the brief".

The model, however, behaves as if the text was displayed. It confidently refers back to "the document above" and asks for approval of it. This happens repeatedly and consistently with Fable 5, and I have not seen it with other models.

Impact

• I am asked to approve/confirm content I cannot see.
• The only workaround is to ask the model to end its turn with the text and ask the confirmation question in a later turn — which breaks tool-gated confirmation flows (the whole point of AskUserQuestion is to gate on the content just presented).

Expected behavior

Text emitted by the assistant before a tool call in the same assistant turn should be rendered to the user. Alternatively, if the harness intentionally suppresses pre-tool-call text, the model should be made aware that this text will not be shown, so it doesn't reference invisible content.

Steps to reproduce

1. Start an interactive Claude Code session with model Fable 5 (claude-fable-5[1m]).
2. Ask the model to draft a document (e.g. a project brief) and confirm it via AskUserQuestion in the same turn.
3. Observe: the draft text is not displayed in the terminal; only the AskUserQuestion dialog appears, referring to the unseen draft.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code