Interrupt signals (Escape and Ctrl+C) show feedback but don't stop agent execution

[pauloportella]

Environment

• Platform (select one):
  • Anthropic API claudemax 20x
  • AWS Bedrock
  • Google Vertex AI
  • Other:
• Claude CLI version: latest 51. This started from 48 or 49
• Operating System: macOS
• Terminal: ghosty + tmux -

Bug Description

When attempting to interrupt a running agent by pressing either the Escape key or Ctrl+C, red feedback text appears in the terminal indicating the interrupt was registered, but the agent continues executing its task without actually stopping.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Start Claude Code and begin a task that involves an agent
2. While the agent is running, press either Escape or Ctrl+C
3. Observe the red feedback text appear in the terminal
4. Notice that the agent continues running despite the feedback

Expected Behaviour

When pressing interrupt keys (Escape or Ctrl+C), the agent should immediately stop execution after showing the interrupt feedback.

Actual Behaviour

Red interrupt feedback text appears in the terminal for both Escape and Ctrl+C, but the agent ignores the interrupt signal and continues executing its current job to completion.

Additional Context

• Both Escape and Ctrl+C exhibit the same behaviour
• The interrupt feedback suggests the keypress is being detected
• According to the docs, Ctrl+C should be the proper interrupt key
• This creates confusion as the visual feedback suggests the interrupt worked when it didn't
• The agent completes its entire task despite multiple interrupt attempts

[github-actions]

This issue has been inactive for 30 days. If the issue is still occurring, please comment to let us know. Otherwise, this issue will be automatically closed in 30 days for housekeeping purposes.

[yeroc]

I just ran into this myself (2.0.34). In general, the potential for issues like this (hanging, unresponsive to interruption) seems to grow exponentially as soon as I have more than two sub-agents running in parallel. :(

[vachagan-balayan-bullish]

this is annoying, repeatedly pressing ESC does not interrupt it, if i do double CTRL+C i kill the instance and i have to reconstruct the context all over again... someone please figure out why it ignores ESC

This might be intellij plugin bug, in terminal it actually works correctly.