Terminal: TUI applications (Claude Code) render duplicate/ghost frames on Windows

[wajih-rathore]

Reproduction steps

1. Open any project in Zed on Windows 11
2. Open the integrated terminal (Ctrl+`)
3. Run claude to start Claude Code (v2.1.81)
4. Type any message (e.g., "hello") and wait for a response
5. Observe the terminal, the entire Claude Code UI is now rendered twice
6. Type another message, it renders a third time, stacking further

Additionally, the following actions make the duplication significantly worse:

• Resizing the terminal panel (dragging the panel border to make it taller/shorter) causes additional frame replications on every resize step
• Toggling zoom with workspace::ToggleZoom (Shift+Escape) also replicates the frames when entering and exiting zoom

Normal terminal output (e.g., ls, git status) renders correctly. The issue is specific to TUI applications that do full-screen redraws. Claude Code uses Ink (a React-based terminal UI renderer) which does frequent full-screen repaints.

This does NOT reproduce in Windows Terminal with the exact same Claude Code session, shell, and project.

Claude Code's team has shipped synchronized output (DEC mode 2026) patches for VS Code's terminal and tmux. Zed's embedded Alacritty may not support synchronized output, which would explain the lack of proper frame buffering.

Terminal settings changes that did NOT fix the issue: line_height: "standard", line_height: { "custom": 1.0 }, TERM: xterm-256color, CLAUDE_CODE_DISABLE_TERMINAL_TITLE: 1

Current vs. Expected behavior

Current behavior: The previous frame is not cleared. Each new TUI repaint appends below the old one, creating duplicate ghost copies of the entire Claude Code interface that stack vertically. Resizing the terminal panel or toggling workspace::ToggleZoom multiplies the ghost frames further. See screenshots below.

Expected behavior: Each Claude Code interaction should render cleanly in place, replacing the previous frame — exactly as it does in Windows Terminal.

(The settings issue is unrelated to all this)

Zed version and system specs

Zed: v0.228.0 (Zed)
OS: Windows 11
Claude Code: v2.1.81 (native Windows install)
Shell: PowerShell 7.6.0

[miguelraz]

Thanks for the report! We'll let the team know. 🫶

[Dnreikronos]

I faced that problem sometimes too.

If I'm not mistaken, it only happens on Windows terminals that aren't Git Bash

@miguelraz, can I analyze that and submit a solution?

[miguelraz]

Assigning people to work on issues is Joseph's or Esther's call, not mine, sorry.

[Mytrill]

I have the same issue on macOS:
shell: zsh
latest zed
latest claude code
mac OS 14.8.4 (23J319)

In case it helps

[LoLei]

Same here on MacOS:

Shell: zsh
Zed: 1.0.1
Claude Code: 2.1.119
macOS: 26.4.1 25E253 arm64

EDIT: For what it's worth, for me this issue seems to have stopped happening. On Zed 1.2.6 currently. Although I have not found a fix related to this in the release notes.