ChubbyDuck

Patch Claude Code Lock — Development skill for Claude Code

Development community

Agent skill that patches the Claude Code extension to stop locking editor groups and creating empty columns.

How to install Patch Claude Code Lock

This entry records only its repository, not the path inside it, so there is no exact command to give. Open ChubbyDuck/patch-claude-code-lock and copy the folder into ~/.claude/skills/, or the file into ~/.claude/agents/.

What Patch Claude Code Lock does

Agent skill that patches the Claude Code extension to stop locking editor groups and creating empty columns.

Alternatives in Development

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README

patch-claude-code-lock

[![skills.sh](https://skills.sh/b/ChubbyDuck/patch-claude-code-lock)](https://skills.sh/ChubbyDuck/patch-claude-code-lock)

Agent skill that patches the Claude Code (`anthropic.claude-code`) extension so it stops locking editor groups and creating a stray empty column (blank pane with only an X) when opened next to Cursor Agents.

This skill fixes two existing issues by patching the obfuscated minified `extension.js` on the local machine (there is no setting for either behavior):

  • anthropics/claude-code#80148 — extension programmatically locks the editor group (workbench.action.lockEditorGroup), bypassing workbench.editor.autoLockGroups
  • anthropics/claude-code#83333findUnusedColumn() creates an empty editor group (blank pane with only an X) when opening beside Cursor Agents

Extension updates install into a fresh directory, so re-run the patch after every update.

Install

npx skills add ChubbyDuck/patch-claude-code-lock

For a global Cursor install:

npx skills add ChubbyDuck/patch-claude-code-lock -g -a cursor -y

Browse the skill on [skills.sh](https://skills.sh/ChubbyDuck/patch-claude-code-lock).

Usage

Ask your agent to apply the Claude Code lock patch, or run it yourself from this skill directory:

python3 scripts/patch.py

The script finds every `anthropic.claude-code-*` install under `~/.cursor/extensions` and `~/.vscode/extensions`. After a successful patch, reload the window (`Developer: Reload Window`), close any leftover empty group once, and unlock any already-locked group once.

Supported versions

Verified lock + column patch against:

Host Versions
VS Code 2.1.216, 2.1.241, 2.1.243, 2.1.2452.1.247, 2.1.2502.1.252
Cursor 2.1.238, 2.1.239, 2.1.263, 2.1.266

The matcher treats minified locals as identi