"Always allow" on multi-line Bash commands creates junk permission entries

[marekmalik]

Description

When approving multi-line Bash commands (for-loops, if-statements, heredocs) with "Always allow", each line of the command is saved as a separate permission entry in settings.local.json, creating dozens of useless/broken entries.

Steps to reproduce

1. Run Claude Code and let it execute a multi-line Bash command, e.g.:

   for icon in a b c; do
     echo "$icon"
   done

2. Click "Always allow" when prompted
3. Check .claude/settings.local.json

Expected behavior

A single, sensible permission pattern is saved (or multi-line commands are excluded from "Always allow").

Actual behavior

Each line is saved as a separate entry:

"Bash(for icon in a b c)",
"Bash(do)",
"Bash(echo:*)",
"Bash(done)"

Additional problematic patterns observed:

• If-statement fragments: Bash(then), Bash(else), Bash(fi) saved as individual entries
• __NEW_LINE_* entries: Internal newline encoding leaks into settings, e.g. Bash(__NEW_LINE_f740ed307bd5cd58__ echo "=== Button SCSS ===")
• Heredoc content saved verbatim: cat << 'ENDOFFILE' commands save the entire file content (hundreds of lines of markdown) as a single permission pattern string, e.g. Bash(/path/to/file.md << 'ENDOFFILE'\n# Phase 4: Component Verification...ENDOFFILE)
• These heredoc entries also trigger /doctor warnings: The :* pattern must be at the end

Impact

Over several sessions, settings.local.json accumulated 92 entries, ~60 of which were junk. The heredoc entries alone were thousands of characters each. The /doctor command flags some of these as invalid patterns.

Environment

• Claude Code (CLI)
• macOS (Darwin 25.2.0)

Suggested fix

Options (not mutually exclusive):

1. Don't offer "Always allow" for multi-line Bash commands
2. If saving, save the full command as a single entry rather than splitting on newlines
3. Sanitize/skip entries that are clearly fragments (do, then, else, fi, done)
4. Never save heredoc content as permission patterns

[github-actions]

Found 3 possible duplicate issues:

1. settings.local.json fragility: multi-line bash commands corrupt permissions array #24161
2. Permission allow-list captures entire literal commands instead of extracting command patterns #21845
3. Permission parser corrupts settings.local.json when approving heredoc/multi-line bash commands #16462

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