GitKraken Desktop 12.0 delivered a big increase in value for managing agentic development workflows. We’re trying to move as fast as this market, and in doing so, we missed some key steps: this version installed Claude Code hooks without a notice or opt-out, the install broke some users’ existing Claude Code configurations, and uninstalling GitKraken Desktop did not remove the Claude Code hooks. After working on this throughout the weekend, fixes are available today.

Moving forward, we will be transitioning from a monthly release cadence to a more frequent schedule to keep pace with the rapid change in developer needs in the market. We will apply these lessons to all our releases going forward.

For those who are interested in the details, below is an expanded view of what happened, and what we’ve done to address the issues:

What Happened and What We’ve Done to Address It

1. Hooks were installed without notice or ability to opt-out. A recent GitKraken Desktop update installed Claude Code hooks without a user-facing prompt and no in-app way to opt out. While this enables us to display the agent status in the new Agent Sessions View, we should have included notifications that this would happen, and the ability to opt-out of this new feature. Downloading the newest version fixes this issue. 
2. If a user manually removed Claude Code hooks, GitKraken Desktop would reinstall them the next time it was launched. Downloading the newest version fixes this issue.
3. In certain cases, users’ existing Claude Code configs could be broken. The hook install errored out some users’ existing Claude Code configurations. The cause of this is that the hooks used were not supported in older Claude Code versions.
4. Uninstalling GitKraken Desktop does not remove the bundled CLI. The bundled CLI persists a user’s local machine after the GitKraken Desktop is removed. We intentionally leave it intact to avoid disrupting any other GitKraken products the user may have installed such as GitLens, GitKraken CLI, and GitKraken MCP. If you do want to uninstall the CLI, you can do so by following the instructions here.
5. Lack of clarity about what usage telemetry is actually collected. We should have specified that we only collect the most basic usage telemetry to make our products better support real-world user needs. 

To further clarify this point, the telemetry payload is limited to the coding agent being used (e.g.: Claude Code) and the hook event name (e.g.: PostToolUse). Below is a real example:

{                                                                                                                                                                                 "ai-host": "claude-code",                                                                                                                                "event-name": "PostToolUse"
                                                                                                                                   }

We’ve built GitKraken over the past 10+ years by being maniacal about developer experience – with products that are used by millions of developers every single day. We don’t take that loyalty lightly. When we make mistakes, we own them, learn from them, and we will apply this heightened communication to all future releases.

If you have further questions or concerns, we want to hear from you. Please reach out to our team.

If you’d like to see a live demo of what GitKraken Desktop 12 can do for your (or your team’s) agentic adoption, book time with us.