AskUserQuestion tool returns empty answers without waiting for user input

[stuartMoorhouse]

Description

The AskUserQuestion tool returns immediately with empty answers instead of blocking until the user actually selects an option.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Use the AskUserQuestion tool with valid questions and options
2. Before the user interacts with the UI, the tool returns successfully

Expected Behavior

The tool should block until the user selects an option (or dismisses the prompt), then return the selected answer(s).

Actual Behavior

The tool returns immediately with:

User has answered your questions: . You can now continue with the user's answers in mind.

Note the empty space after the colon — no actual answers are included. This happened on every invocation (3 consecutive calls in one session), and the assistant proceeded as if answers were given, hallucinating the user's selections.

Impact

• The assistant cannot gather user input via structured questions
• The assistant may hallucinate answers and proceed on false assumptions
• Users have no way to know their input wasn't captured unless they notice the assistant making wrong assumptions

Environment

• Claude Code CLI
• Model: claude-opus-4-6
• Platform: macOS (Darwin 25.3.0)

[github-actions]

Found 3 possible duplicate issues:

1. AskUserQuestion tool completes without user input, returning empty answer #29733
2. AskUserQuestion tool doesn't render interactive UI — returns empty response immediately #29530
3. [Bug] AskUserQuestion tool returns empty answer without user interaction #29593

This issue will be automatically closed as a duplicate in 3 days.

• If your issue is a duplicate, please close it and 👍 the existing issue instead
• To prevent auto-closure, add a comment or 👎 this comment

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[Meme-Theory]

I had to troubleshoot through this. If you have the skill give a pause, and ensure there are AT LEAST TWO ANSWERS, it will work. I had a 5 question list in a skill, and the first one would get stepped on by the skill progression - the pause gate fixed that. Add a "Type Ok to continue" prompt to the skill before the questions. (You can type anything; just need the pause and user nudge to keep going).