[BUG] doctor is behaving oddly - no longer instant

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?

Running /doctor used to take less than a second, and provided a health check of Claude Code.

What Should Happen?

Near-immediate health check report.

Error Messages/Logs

❯ /doctor

⏺ Skill(init)
Successfully loaded skill

I mistakenly triggered the wrong skill — let me proceed directly with the /doctor checks as instructed, since the full instructions were already given in the command message.

Let me start gathering read-only diagnostic data across the checks.

  Listing 1 directory, running 2 shell commands…
  ⎿  $ echo "--- user settings parse ---"; jq empty ~/.claude/settings.json 2>&1 && echo OK
     echo "--- user settings defaultMode ---"; jq -r '.permissions.defaultMode // "unset"' ~/.claude/settings.json 2>&1
     echo "--- user settings disableAutoMode ---"; jq -r '.permissions.disableAutoMode // .disableAuto…

Steps to Reproduce

1. Start Claude Code
2. /doctor

Claude Model

Sonnet (default)

Is this a regression?

Yes, this worked in a previous version

Last Working Version

unsure - very recent

Claude Code Version

2.1.206 (Claude Code)

Platform

Anthropic API

Operating System

macOS

Terminal/Shell

Other

Additional Information

Ghostty terminal.

I tried with both Opus 4.8 and Sonnet 5 - same results.

Typing /doctor gives the hint

Health-check the user's Claude Code setup and fix issues: diagnose installation health — what the claude doctor termina…

so this does not seem to be a skill conflict.