Ctrl+G "open in editor" shortcut does nothing in AskUserQuestion "Chat about this" flow

Status Open
Reported on v2.1.233
Maintainer reply None cached
Activity 0 comments · opened Aug 17, 2026

Description

When answering a question from the AskUserQuestion tool, selecting "Chat about this"
reveals a hint that Ctrl+G opens the current context in $EDITOR (nvim in my case).
Pressing Ctrl+G does nothing — no editor launches, no visible error.

Environment

  • Claude Code version: 2.1.233
  • OS: WSL2 (Linux 6.6.87.2-microsoft-standard-WSL2), host Windows
  • Terminal: Alacritty (running on Windows host, connecting into WSL2)
  • Shell: zsh
  • $EDITOR / $VISUAL: nvim (both set)

Repro steps

  1. Trigger an AskUserQuestion prompt.
  2. Select "Chat about this" on a question.
  3. Note the hint to press Ctrl+G to open in editor.
  4. Press Ctrl+G.
  5. Nothing happens — no editor opens.

What I've ruled out

Confirmed the raw keystroke reaches the terminal/shell correctly outside of
Claude Code — a manual read -k 1 -s key; echo -n "$key" | xxd in zsh while
pressing Ctrl+G returns byte 07 (BEL) as expected. Also checked:

  • No custom keybindings.json in ~/.claude
  • No tmux/zellij session intercepting the keystroke
  • Alacritty's Windows-side config (alacritty.toml) has no binding on Ctrl+G,

only an unrelated Shift+Return binding

This suggests the issue is in Claude Code's own key handling or in the
editor-launch handshake (suspending its own terminal control to exec $EDITOR),
not the terminal/OS/shell layer.

Expected behavior

Pressing Ctrl+G during "Chat about this" should suspend Claude Code and open
the current content in $EDITOR (nvim), as the on-screen hint describes.

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