[BUG] Hard line breaks at ~80 characters in VS Code extension, breaking copy/paste

[psarno]

Bug Description

Claude Code inserts hard line breaks at ~80 characters server-side in its terminal output, breaking copy/paste workflows. The display behavior is inconsistent - sometimes line breaks are visible in the VS Code panel, sometimes text appears to flow naturally, but the underlying text always contains embedded hard breaks that appear when copied. Affects workflows when copying terminal output for release notes, documentation, or other text content.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Ask Claude Code to generate any long text in VS Code
2. Observe inconsistent display behavior - breaks may or may not be visible in the panel
3. Copy/paste the text - hard breaks are always embedded at ~80 characters regardless of display

Expected Behavior

Text should flow naturally without embedded line breaks, with consistent display behavior.

Actual Behavior

Hard line breaks inserted every ~80 characters in the underlying text. Display is inconsistent - sometimes shows breaks visually, sometimes appears to flow naturally, but copy/paste always reveals embedded breaks.

Note: The embedded line breaks cause workflow disruption when generating release notes and documentation in GitHub, requiring manual cleanup with DEL key to remove unwanted breaks and whitespace.

Environment

• Platform: Windows 11
• VS Code Extension: Claude Code v1.0.96
• Related Feedback ID: bf385482-e844-4ce9-8830-3649db40e078

Evidence - Claude Code Acknowledges the Issue

When asked about this behavior, Claude Code itself confirmed:

"That's exactly right - and I can see it happening in my responses too. When I try to write naturally flowing text, something on the server side is inserting hard line breaks at around 80 characters, which breaks copy-paste functionality for things like markdown files or release notes. This seems like a bug or overly aggressive formatting rule in Claude Code that should definitely be configurable or removed entirely."

Note: The line breaks are inconsistently preserved depending on the target application. GitHub's markdown editor normalizes them, but they appear in plain text editors and break workflows when generating files.

CRITICAL: Breaking words mid-character

Unwanted breaks - it splits words in the middle (e.g., "useful" becomes "usefu" + "l"), which corrupts the actual content .

[gabrielbryk]

+1 breaks URLs too

[speir-wang]

I am on macOS and it's happening on macOS too.

[github-actions[bot]]

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.

[bsdis]

+1 im on macos and have same issue.

[pentafive]

Confirming this issue on WSL2/Windows 11 with Claude Code 2.0.x.

I've filed #15199 to consolidate this problem with the related indent issue and frame the full scope:

• Token cost: Prompt-based workarounds in CLAUDE.md waste tokens every session
• Adoption context: 115k developers using Claude Code, 300% growth - new users won't know workarounds
• Parity gap: Desktop/Web has copy buttons; CLI bakes artifacts into everything
• Community evidence: #859 (37+ upvotes), #13378, #5097, #4686

With creators like NetworkChuck driving adoption, first impressions matter. This affects every CLI user's workflow.

Please consider removing the autoclose label.