RTL (Right-to-Left) text rendering is broken in VS Code extension
Description
When Claude responds in RTL (right-to-left) languages such as Persian (Farsi), Arabic, or Hebrew, the text is rendered in reverse order in the VS Code extension panel. Words and characters appear mirrored/garbled, making RTL responses completely unreadable.
Steps to Reproduce
- Open Claude Code in VS Code
- Ask Claude to respond in Persian/Arabic/Hebrew
- Observe the output in the chat panel
Expected Behavior
RTL text should render correctly with proper bidirectional (BiDi) text support — right-to-left word order, correct character joining, and proper punctuation placement.
Actual Behavior
RTL text appears reversed/garbled. Words are displayed in left-to-right order, making the response unreadable.
Environment
- OS: macOS (Darwin 25.3.0)
- VS Code: Latest
- Claude Code: Latest
Impact
This affects all users who communicate in RTL languages (Persian, Arabic, Hebrew, Urdu, etc.), making Claude Code unusable for a significant portion of users in their native language.
Suggested Fix
Add BiDi (bidirectional) text rendering support in the VS Code webview panel. This could involve:
- Using CSS
direction: rtlandunicode-bidiproperties for detected RTL text - Auto-detecting text direction based on Unicode script ranges
- Ensuring the rendering engine respects UAX #9 (Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm)
This issue has 2 comments on GitHub. Read the full discussion on GitHub ↗