[BUG] Browser pane read tools (screenshot/read_page) permanently blocked — "per-action approval" required but approval card never appears (Auto mode, allowlisted site)

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?

In the Claude Desktop app, the in-app Browser pane cannot use its read tools (screenshot, read_page, get_page_text) on a site — even when the site is on the Browser Allowed sites list and the permission mode is Auto. Navigation to the site succeeds, but every read tool fails with:

This site requires per-action approval; Browser read tools are not available on it.

No per-site approval card/prompt ever appears, so the approval the tool says it needs can never be granted. The block is unrecoverable from the user's side.

What Should Happen?

In Auto mode with the domain on the Browser Allowed sites list, the read tools (screenshot, read_page, get_page_text) should run without a per-site approval prompt — per the documented behavior that the domain-allowlist check does not apply in Auto and Bypass modes.

If a per-action approval is genuinely required, the approval card/prompt should actually be displayed so the user can grant it. Currently no prompt is shown, so the required approval can never be satisfied and the read tools stay permanently unavailable for the site.

Error Messages/Logs

Every browser read tool call (`screenshot` / `read_page` / `get_page_text`) returns:

> This site requires per-action approval; Browser read tools are not available on it.

Navigation itself does not error (the page loads). Only the read tools fail. No approval prompt/card is rendered to the user at any point.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Add a site to the Browser Allowed sites list (Settings → Browser). Example: entered www.trec.texas.gov, which the field auto-normalizes to trec.texas.gov (the www prefix is stripped on save).
2. Set the permission mode to Auto (confirmed via the mode selector chip next to the send button).
3. Open the in-app Browser pane and navigate to https://www.trec.texas.gov/ (redirects to https://trec.texas.gov). Navigation succeeds.
4. Ask Claude to screenshot or read the page (screenshot / read_page / get_page_text).
5. Observe: the read tool fails immediately, and no per-site approval prompt ever appears.

Also attempted, with no change: retried multiple times, opened a fresh browser tab, and re-navigated to the page.

Claude Model

Opus

Is this a regression?

I don't know

Last Working Version

_No response_

Claude Code Version

2.1.209

Platform

Anthropic API

Operating System

Windows

Terminal/Shell

Other

Additional Information

Verified during troubleshooting:

• Site is on the Allowed sites list (entered as www.trec.texas.gov; stored as trec.texas.gov after auto-stripping www)
• Permission mode confirmed = Auto
• Navigation to the site succeeds; only the read tools fail
• Reproduced across retries, a newly created tab, and re-navigation
• No approval prompt was ever displayed

Likely cause (inferred, not confirmed): the per-action approval UI for browser read tools does not render, so an approval the backend requires can never be satisfied.

Impact: Blocks all agent-driven visual review of external sites (screenshots / page reads) in the Desktop app, even when the site is explicitly allowlisted and Auto mode should permit it. Forces the user to manually capture and paste screenshots.

Related issues (same class of bug — approval UI never renders — reported for the Claude in Chrome extension surface; this report is the in-app Browser pane with a distinct error string that does not appear to be reported yet):

• #61611 — Claude in Chrome MCP page-content tools blocked; approval UI never renders (closed as duplicate)
• #50457 — per-action approval dispatcher broken on all browser MCP tools (closed as duplicate)
• #55580 — allowlist override for server-side domain blocks (open)

_Suggested attachments: screenshot of the error, the Allowed sites dialog showing trec.texas.gov, and the Auto mode chip._