[Bug] Thinking summaries not displayed when `showThinkingSummaries` enabled in settings.json

[varungodbole]

Bug Description
CC doesn't respect the "showThinkingSummaries": true in settings.json. I'm using CC now and it doesn't show any thinking summaries despite how long the model has been thinking at max effort.

Environment Info

• Platform: darwin
• Terminal: Apple_Terminal
• Version: 2.1.96
• Feedback ID: ace07b37-15cc-4b60-a5b1-2f486cb6000e

Errors

[]

[github-actions]

Found 3 possible duplicate issues:

1. [BUG] v2.1.69: thinking summaries empty in transcript and TUI — undocumented behavior change #30958
2. [BUG] Thinking block content empty in JSONL session files since 2.1.72 (signatures present, text missing) #32810
3. [BUG] Verbose mode not displaying thinking blocks in 2.1.42 (regression since 2.1.29) #25980

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

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🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[varungodbole]

I don't seem to have permissions to update the bug, but it should be version 2.1.96. It updated when I opened a new CC terminal to file the bug.

[varungodbole]

Actually, it seems that the thinking summaries do show up sometimes in 2.1.96. Just not all the time. I don't know how to reliably reproduce this for you. But I'd be very surprised if the model isn't producing thinking tokens under the hood given how long it seems to think for and how long the responses are.

[vicenzomasat]

Nah bro, is a feature, not a bug https://code.claude.com/docs/en/settings#available-settings :
showThinkingSummaries Show extended thinking summaries in interactive sessions. When unset or false (default in interactive mode), thinking blocks are redacted by the API and shown as a collapsed stub. Redaction only changes what you see, not what the model generates: to reduce thinking spend, lower the budget or disable thinking instead. Non-interactive mode (-p) and SDK callers always receive summaries regardless of this setting true

[dwaltrip]

A few weeks ago, the undocumented showThinkingSummaries finally brought back the thinking blocks for me -- at least for the most recent messages in the session -- after I had lost complete access to that feature for several months.

This morning I updated to Claude Code v2.1.112 (to get access to the Opus 4.7), and now poof, the thinking blocks seem to be completely gone again...

I checked ~/.claude/settings.json, and "showThinkingSummaries": true is still there.

[larswww]

not seeing the thinking is driving me nuts and the setting does not work.

[therajvira]

Confirming this reproduces on Linux, Claude Code 2.1.114, Opus 4.7 — 18 point-releases past the original 2.1.96 report and still broken.

Settings (~/.claude/settings.json):

"viewMode": "verbose",
"showThinkingSummaries": true,

Both keys match the official docs at https://code.claude.com/docs/en/settings exactly. The showThinkingSummaries entry there explicitly describes the expected behavior: "When unset or false (default in interactive mode), thinking blocks are redacted by the API and shown as a collapsed stub." Setting it to true is the documented way to expand those stubs. @vicenzomasat — the docs you quoted are the reason people enable this setting; the bug is that Claude Code is not honoring it.

Symptom: every thinking block renders as a collapsed one-liner like:

• Weighing a few approaches…
• Untangling some thoughts…
• This one needs a moment…

…never expanding into actual summary content, regardless of model effort level (tested with Opus 4.7 at xhigh). Restarting Claude Code after the settings change does not help.

Corroborating reports on the same bug:

• @dwaltrip in this thread: working briefly, then broken again after upgrading to 2.1.112
• @larswww in this thread: "the setting does not work"
• Related: [BUG] v2.1.69: thinking summaries empty in transcript and TUI — undocumented behavior change #30958 (v2.1.69 regression — thinking summaries went empty), Opus 4.7 thinking summaries not rendered (VSCode extension 2.1.112) #49902 (same regression in VSCode extension 2.1.112 for Opus 4.7)
• Feature request [FEATURE] Add Option to Always Show Claude's Thinking #8477 is upstream of this — users can't even see thinking that already exists

Asks:

1. Could a maintainer triage this? The duplicate-bot auto-close timer is counting down but neither of the 3 suggested duplicates ([BUG] v2.1.69: thinking summaries empty in transcript and TUI — undocumented behavior change #30958, [BUG] Thinking block content empty in JSONL session files since 2.1.72 (signatures present, text missing) #32810, [BUG] Verbose mode not displaying thinking blocks in 2.1.42 (regression since 2.1.29) #25980) track the current showThinkingSummaries-specific break.
2. If this is a deliberate product change rather than a regression, please update the settings docs — they currently promise this setting works in interactive mode, which contradicts observed behavior across multiple versions and platforms.

Reproducing on: uname -r 6.8.0-1042-aws · CLI 2.1.114 · Opus 4.7 · terminal: tmux/alacritty · settings confirmed via node -e 'console.log(require("~/.claude/settings.json").showThinkingSummaries)' → true.

[vzakharov]

Confirming this bug on v2.1.114 on macOS — "showThinkingSummaries": true in ~/.claude/settings.json has no effect, no gray thinking summaries appear even on heavy reasoning tasks with effortLevel: "high".

Workaround (not a fix, but useful in the meantime): instruct Claude via CLAUDE.md to emit reasoning in square-bracketed [thinking]...[/thinking] blocks instead of the standard angle-bracketed ones. These aren't parsed as special by the TUI, so the content renders as normal visible text inline — giving you back visibility into the model's reasoning process until the setting is fixed.

Example CLAUDE.md entry:

When reasoning through problems, wrap your internal reasoning in [thinking]...[/thinking] blocks (square brackets, not angle brackets). This makes your thinking visible in the terminal output.

Here's how it looks in practice:

Caveat: this isn't extended thinking in the API sense — it's just regular output text that's stylistically separated. But for users who want visibility into the model's chain of thought during a session, it's a serviceable stopgap.

[vzakharov]

(By the way, thinking blocks are no longer shown in the extension version either -- previously they were even when the CLI ones were gone.)