Push notifications to mobile don't fire while Remote Control session stays connected

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?

Push notifications to mobile don't fire while Remote Control is connected. agentPushNotifEnabled and inputNeededNotifEnabled are both true in settings.json. OS-level notification permissions and "override Do Not Disturb" are both enabled on the phone. Every attempt to trigger a mobile push (via the PushNotification tool) returns "Not sent — this terminal is active" — even after locking the phone screen, force-quitting and reopening the app, and waiting ~30s with zero user interaction while a background task independently triggered the notification call.

What Should Happen?

The push notification should reach the phone even while Remote Control stays connected, as long as the user isn't actively looking at the screen — the "active" check currently seems tied to the Remote Control connection itself, not to actual user attention.

Error Messages/Logs

Steps to Reproduce

1. Connect to a Claude Code session from the Claude mobile app using Remote Control, with agentPushNotifEnabled and inputNeededNotifEnabled set to true.
2. Lock the phone screen (or background the app) while keeping the Remote Control session connected.
3. Trigger a PushNotification call (e.g. wait for a background task to complete).
4. Observe the call returns "Not sent — this terminal is active" and no notification arrives on the phone, even though the screen is locked and no one is looking at it.

Claude Model

Not sure / Multiple models

Is this a regression?

No, this never worked

Last Working Version

_No response_

Claude Code Version

2.1.223 (Claude Code)

Platform

Anthropic API

Operating System

macOS

Terminal/Shell

Terminal.app (macOS)

Additional Information

Possibly related to #60383 (closed as stale, not fixed) — but that report shows PushNotification returning "Mobile push requested" (looks like success) with silent delivery failure, whereas this report shows an explicit "Not sent — this terminal is active" refusal before any delivery attempt — suggesting a different, more specific gate.