Voice mode unavailable on Windows: native audio-capture module not shipped in npm package

Resolved 💬 2 comments Opened Mar 13, 2026 by GHOZTD251 Closed Apr 10, 2026

Description

The /voice command on Windows fails with:

Voice recording requires the native audio module, which could not be loaded.

The native binary audio-capture/x64-win32/audio-capture.node is expected by the code but is not included in the npm package distribution.

Steps to Reproduce

  1. Install Claude Code via npm on Windows: npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code
  2. Run /voice
  3. Get error: "Voice recording requires the native audio module, which could not be loaded."

Environment

  • OS: Windows 11 Enterprise (10.0.26200)
  • Node.js: v25.7.0
  • Claude Code: v2.1.75 (installed via npm)
  • Architecture: x64-win32

Analysis

The code in cli.js attempts to load a native Node addon from audio-capture/x64-win32/audio-capture.node relative to the package directory. This binary does not exist in the npm distribution — the audio-capture/ directory is entirely absent.

On Linux/macOS, the code falls back to sox (rec) or arecord CLI tools, but on Windows there is no such fallback — if the native module isn't available, voice mode is completely unavailable.

The audio-capture.node binary is not listed as an optional dependency in package.json (only @img/sharp-* variants are), so reinstalling does not resolve the issue.

Expected Behavior

The native audio-capture.node binary for Windows (x64) should be included in the npm package, or an alternative recording mechanism should be available as a fallback on Windows.

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