VSCode extension: file links in chat panel look clickable but don't navigate or reveal the file

Summary

In the Claude Code VSCode extension, file references rendered in the chat panel appear as clickable links (blue, link-styled text), but clicking them does nothing: they do not open the file, do not navigate to it, and do not reveal its location. This is an affordance mismatch — the UI signals "clickable link" but provides no working link behavior.

Environment

• OS: Windows 11 Pro for Workstations (10.0.26200)
• Claude Code: VSCode native extension
• Model: Claude Opus 4.8

Steps to reproduce

1. Ask Claude Code to create a file in a subfolder (e.g. C:\Users\<user>\SomeFolder\doc.md).
2. In its reply, Claude renders a file reference styled as a link (blue text), sometimes showing only the filename (doc.md) without the folder path.
3. Click the blue link in the chat panel.

Expected behavior

Clicking a file link in the chat panel should do one of:

• Open the file in the editor, and/or
• Navigate/reveal the file in the Explorer, and/or
• At minimum, show a tooltip with the full resolved path on hover.

Actual behavior

• Clicking the link does nothing — no navigation, no open, no reveal.
• The right-click context menu on the link shows only text-editing actions (Cut / Copy / Paste), indicating the element is being treated as plain text, not as a navigable link.
• When the displayed text is just the filename (no folder), the user has no way to tell where the file actually lives.

Impact / why it matters

This is a genuine UX/affordance defect: an element that looks like a link but is not navigable violates user expectations and causes confusion. Users cannot locate files Claude created, and reasonably conclude the feature is broken. It particularly affects non-developer users, who rely on clickable links rather than reading absolute paths.

Suggested fixes

• Make chat-panel file references true clickable links that open/reveal the file.
• Always render the folder path (relative to workspace root), not just the bare filename.
• If a link is not navigable in a given context, show the full resolved path on hover, or render it as plain (non-link-styled) text so it does not falsely signal clickability.

Notes

Reported by a user via a Claude Code session; wording drafted collaboratively with the assistant.