PR #600 answers AskUserQuestion (multi-select / multi-question / free-text) by dismissing the picker with Esc and sending the choices as an XML prompt — a deliberate workaround. This issue tracks replacing it with a native completion, and removing the code the workaround orphaned.
Why the workaround exists
Keystroke-driving Claude's TUI picker is broken for everything except single-select and re-breaks each release (confirmed live against claude v2.1.218):
- multi-select / multi-question never press the new "Submit answers" review screen (driver reports
ok:true while Claude hangs);
- multi-select over-toggles an option whose
[ ] checkbox wraps;
- free-text always times out (its footer still matches the picker fingerprint).
The workaround is version-proof but has costs: Claude records the tool as declined (a generic rejection result, is_error:true, indistinguishable from an abandonment — see docs/decomposition/evidence/auq-decline/), the answer arrives as a follow-up message rather than a real tool_result, and the raw XML shows as a visible user message.
What "native" would need
A real tool_result carrying the structured selections, delivered without screen-scraping the picker. Options to investigate:
- Does Claude Code expose (or could upstream expose) a non-TUI way to complete an AskUserQuestion tool call — an SDK/headless hook, a control message, or a stable machine-readable completion path?
- If not, is there a robust way to drive the current TUI (including the "Submit answers" review screen, wrapped checkboxes, and the free-text field) that survives version drift — e.g. reading cell attributes rather than plain text?
Cleanup this unblocks (the orphaned "bodies")
Once native (or a robust driver) lands, delete the keystroke-driver code the workaround orphaned in claude-code-headless — all confirmed unreachable after #600 (the renderer no longer routes multi/free-text through resolveCondition):
driveMulti, focusSubmit, optionToggled, waitForStableTextEntry, sanitizeFreeText, sameScreenQuestion, the free-text branches of driveSingle, and the multi-answer loop in resolveAskUserQuestionAnswer.- The
allowTruncated gate + the multi-select fail-closed test (they gate/test the code above).
- The dead
snapshotPlain resolve-ctx field.
- Stale "PR-5 / read-only until PR-5" comments in
askUserQuestion.ts and the parser header.
And in agent-code: AskOption.preview is parsed but never rendered.
References
PR #600 answers AskUserQuestion (multi-select / multi-question / free-text) by dismissing the picker with Esc and sending the choices as an XML prompt — a deliberate workaround. This issue tracks replacing it with a native completion, and removing the code the workaround orphaned.
Why the workaround exists
Keystroke-driving Claude's TUI picker is broken for everything except single-select and re-breaks each release (confirmed live against
claudev2.1.218):ok:truewhile Claude hangs);[ ]checkbox wraps;The workaround is version-proof but has costs: Claude records the tool as declined (a generic rejection result,
is_error:true, indistinguishable from an abandonment — seedocs/decomposition/evidence/auq-decline/), the answer arrives as a follow-up message rather than a realtool_result, and the raw XML shows as a visible user message.What "native" would need
A real
tool_resultcarrying the structured selections, delivered without screen-scraping the picker. Options to investigate:Cleanup this unblocks (the orphaned "bodies")
Once native (or a robust driver) lands, delete the keystroke-driver code the workaround orphaned in
claude-code-headless— all confirmed unreachable after #600 (the renderer no longer routes multi/free-text throughresolveCondition):driveMulti,focusSubmit,optionToggled,waitForStableTextEntry,sanitizeFreeText,sameScreenQuestion, the free-text branches ofdriveSingle, and the multi-answer loop inresolveAskUserQuestionAnswer.allowTruncatedgate + the multi-select fail-closed test (they gate/test the code above).snapshotPlainresolve-ctx field.askUserQuestion.tsand the parser header.And in agent-code:
AskOption.previewis parsed but never rendered.References
docs/decomposition/2026-07-23-auq-answer-via-prompt.mddocs/decomposition/evidence/auq-decline/esc-decline-result.md