[Feature Request] Make AskUserQuestion timeout configurable
Bug Description
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Title: Make AskUserQuestion timeout configurable (or restore indefinite wait)
Body:
After a recent update, the AskUserQuestion tool now waits ~60 seconds and then continues without my answer, proceeding with empty/unintended selections. Previously it waited indefinitely until I responded.
This breaks my workflow: I'm often reading code, switching windows, or thinking about the answer when the question expires, and then the agent moves on with the wrong assumption — sometimes taking actions I didn't approve.
Request: Please add a setting to configure or disable this timeout, e.g.:
{
"askUserQuestion": { "timeout": 0 }
}
where 0/null = wait indefinitely (the old behavior). Even a global "never time out interactive questions" toggle would be enough.
Related prior request: issue #30740 (closed as "not planned"). Reopening consideration would be appreciated — the 60s timeout causing unintended actions is a correctness/safety issue, not just a convenience one.
---
Environment Info
- Platform: linux
- Terminal: windows-terminal
- Version: 2.1.198
- Feedback ID: 38abfc9c-b93e-4a59-b3f1-458b3e899b36
Errors
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7 Comments
Related: https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/62657
Workaround: https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/73125#issuecomment-4861995993
This new stupid timeout feature for questions disrupts the way I work with several Claude Code sessions in parallel.
Hitting this daily. I ask my sessions to end every turn with AskUserQuestion because the decisions it surfaces are exactly the ones I want to make myself, and now whenever I take more than a minute to think or step away, the tool times out and the model "proceeds on best judgment" with the choice I specifically wanted to weigh in on. By the time I'm back it has already picked an option and done the work on top of it.
If I open a question prompt I'm fine with it sitting there for an hour, that's the point of asking. Please give us a setting to raise the timeout or turn it off entirely, even a plain
envvar would do.I never take the time to comment on these things, but this is a horrible change. It breaks my workflow in the exact same way as other commenters. Please, please make this configurable.
I am drinking the Kool Aid on auto mode, long autonomous loops etc. - but I use AskUserQuestion sessions to configure those before setting them running.
+1 — please make this configurable, including the option to disable the timeout entirely.
Use case: long-running autonomous sessions (subagent-driven development) where the agent periodically needs a decision (e.g. merge/PR/keep/discard at the end of a phase). The user may be away for minutes or hours; the hardcoded 60s timeout means the agent either has to re-ask the same question in a loop (dozens of no-op tool calls polluting the transcript) or worse, 'proceed using best judgment' on a decision that should never be assumed. A setting like
askUserQuestionTimeout: <seconds | never>would solve this cleanly.The default behavior of skipping user choices after 60s is too arbitrary, which increases the chances of errors due to the inherent uncertainty of LLMs. Please optimize this implementation as soon as possible to support disabling the default timeout.