Support CJK (Chinese/Japanese/Korean) word boundary navigation with Option+Arrow keys on macOS

Resolved 💬 1 comment Opened Nov 6, 2025 by MarkShawn2020 Closed Dec 11, 2025

Environment

  • Platform: macOS (iTerm2)
  • Claude Code Version: Latest
  • Terminal: iTerm2

Current Behavior

When typing Chinese (or other CJK languages) in Claude Code's input prompt:

  • Option + Left/Right Arrow navigates by ASCII words only
  • Chinese characters are not recognized as word boundaries
  • Navigation treats entire Chinese sentence as one unit

Expected Behavior

Should match native iTerm2 behavior:

  • Option + Arrow should jump between Chinese words/phrases
  • Respect CJK word boundaries (词边界)
  • Consistent with macOS system-wide text navigation

Steps to Reproduce

  1. Type a mixed input: hello 你好世界 world
  2. Press Option + Left Arrow
  3. Cursor jumps over entire Chinese portion, not word-by-word

Technical Context

This appears to be a readline/input library limitation in recognizing CJK character boundaries. The underlying input handler may need:

  • Unicode word boundary detection (UAX #29)
  • CJK-aware tokenization
  • Platform-specific word navigation mappings

Impact

Affects all CJK language users on macOS, making text editing cumbersome for non-ASCII input.

Related

  • This works correctly in native iTerm2 shell
  • Other modern terminals (VS Code, etc.) support CJK word navigation

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