[BUG] `claude install` breaks on OpenBSD

Preflight Checklist

• [x] I have searched existing issues and this hasn't been reported yet
• [x] This is a single bug report (please file separate reports for different bugs)
• [x] I am using the latest version of Claude Code

What's Wrong?

On a working claude 2.1.38 w/ Opus 4.6 Pro:

❯ what operating system are you running on?

● Based on the environment info, I'm running on OpenBSD 7.8.

❯ Does 'claude install' work on OpenBSD? When I tried it earlier, it yielded a non-executable Linux ELF binary

● claude-code-guide(Research claude install OpenBSD)
⎿  Done (9 tool uses · 22.0k tokens · 18s)

● No, claude install (the native installer via curl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.sh | bash) does not properly support OpenBSD. The install script
doesn't account for OpenBSD and falls back to downloading a Linux ELF binary, which obviously won't run on OpenBSD's kernel.

OpenBSD is not an officially supported platform. The native installer only targets:

• macOS
• Linux (Ubuntu, Debian, Alpine)
• Windows

Since you're clearly running Claude Code right now on OpenBSD 7.8, I assume you installed it via npm (npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code),
which works because it's Node.js-based and doesn't depend on a platform-specific binary.

What you can do:

• Stick with the npm install method, which works fine
• File an issue at https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues requesting that the install script either support OpenBSD or fail gracefully

with a clear error instead of silently downloading an incompatible binary

What Should Happen?

claude install should not destroy an nodejs install on non-target or unsupported platforms.
An error should be returned instead.

Error Messages/Logs

Steps to Reproduce

1. Install nodejs variant of Claude on OpenBSD
2. Take Claude's advice and run claude install
3. See Claude break.

Claude Model

Opus

Is this a regression?

No, this never worked

Last Working Version

_No response_

Claude Code Version

2.1.38

Platform

Anthropic API

Operating System

Other

Terminal/Shell

Other

Additional Information

_No response_