[BUG] Desktop app telemetry missing user.email in of requests across all versions

Preflight Checklist

• [x] I have searched existing issues and this hasn't been reported yet
• [x] This is a single bug report (please file separate reports for different bugs)
• [x] I am using the latest version of Claude Code

What's Wrong?

Summary

claude-code-desktop has a systemic issue where ~23% of telemetry requests lack the user.email attribute, compared to only 0.3% in the CLI. The problem affects all desktop versions, including the latest (1.11847.5).

Impact

• Telemetry dashboard shows "N/A" for ~49,631 requests (last 31d)
• Makes it impossible to group/filter desktop app usage by user email
• Affects all versions, suggesting a pipeline issue rather than a version-specific bug

Affected versions

All versions show the issue, with highest volume in:

• 1.11847.5 (18,183 requests)
• 1.11187.4 (10,739 requests)
• 1.9659.2 (6,249 requests)

Root cause hypothesis

Unlike the CLI (where one old version was the culprit), the desktop app's telemetry pipeline appears to not enrich events with user.email in many cases — likely when users authenticate via OAuth/SSO without exposing email to the instrumentation layer, or when the OTel exporter isn't configured to attach the email field.

Expected behavior

Desktop app telemetry should include user.email consistently, matching the CLI's 99.7% success rate.

What Should Happen?

The Claude Code Desktop app should include user.email in telemetry events consistently — ideally matching the CLI's 99.7% success rate (currently only 76.7% for Desktop).

Specifically:

All telemetry requests from Desktop should contain the @user.email attribute
Users authenticated via OAuth/SSO should have their email properly enriched into the OTel payload
The telemetry pipeline should attach the email field to events the same way the CLI does
Why it matters:

Enables proper user identification and grouping in telemetry dashboards
Eliminates "N/A" entries that obscure usage patterns
Provides consistent observability across CLI and Desktop surfaces

Error Messages/Logs

Example telemetry trace:
{"claude":{"deployment_mode":"1p"},"os":{"type":"darwin","version":"15.1.0"},"prompt_length":"179","session":{"id":"996edba0-c209-44cf-969a-a83b8dfe9098"},"otel":{"trace_id":"8feca165a36b61b264c3c058b90c3a76","library":{"name":"com.anthropic.claude_code.events","version":"2.1.170"},"span_id":"1fdcb458e3d14fd4","service":{"name":"claude-code-desktop","version":"1.11847.5"},"user_agent":"OTel-OTLP-Exporter-JavaScript/0.208.0","timestamp":"1781295388537000000"},"host":{"arch":"arm64"},"terminal":{"type":"non-interactive"},"event":{"sequence":454,"name":"user_prompt","timestamp":"2026-06-12T20:16:28.537Z"},"user":{"id":"a10b2224783899589906535793ad65941e71c54c55164cbd436d2dc50a0c8c2d"},"prompt":"puede hacerse todo en una pr o deberia splitearse? ademas lo de braintree hay que desecharlo ya que no sirve, lo puse en stash pero no son cambios necesarios son de pruebas viejas"}

Steps to Reproduce

Steps to Reproduce:

Set up telemetry collection for your Claude organization with OTel instrumentation enabled
Use Claude Code Desktop (any version 1.9255.2 or later) with OAuth/SSO authentication
Generate requests by using the Desktop app normally (e.g., opening projects, running tasks, interacting with the agent)
Export telemetry logs from your observability platform (last 24-48 hours)
Filter by service name claude-code-desktop
Check for @user.email attribute:
Run a query like: service:claude-code-desktop | stats count by user.email
Or filter: service:claude-code-desktop user.email:* to see only events WITH email
Observe the gap: Compare requests with user.email vs. those showing as "N/A" or missing the field entirely
Verify across versions: Repeat steps 1-7 with different Desktop versions (1.11847.5, 1.11187.4, 1.9659.2) — the issue should appear in all of them*
Expected result: ~99% of requests include user.email (matching CLI behavior)

Actual result: Only ~76.7% include user.email; ~23.3% are missing it

Claude Model

None

Is this a regression?

No, this never worked

Last Working Version

_No response_

Claude Code Version

1.11847.5 Claude Code Desktop

Platform

Anthropic API

Operating System

macOS

Terminal/Shell

Terminal.app (macOS)

Additional Information

_No response_