Feature request: UI localization / i18n (Russian and other languages)

Resolved 💬 3 comments Opened May 8, 2026 by NRM-Hawk Closed May 12, 2026

Preflight Checklist

  • [x] I have searched existing requests and this feature hasn't been requested yet
  • [x] This is a single feature request (not multiple features)

Problem Statement

Feature Request: UI Localization (i18n)

Claude Code's UI strings (permission dialogs, menus, buttons) are hardcoded in English. Please add localization support.

Requested language: Russian (ru-RU), and ideally a general i18n framework for other languages.

Affected UI elements:

  • Permission dialogs: "Allow this bash command?", "Yes", "No", "Never mind"
  • "Continue in Terminal", "Yes, allow ... for all projects"
  • All other hardcoded English strings

Motivation: The language setting already makes Claude respond in the user's language, but the UI stays in English — inconsistent experience for non-English speakers.

Suggested approach: Extract strings to locale files (locales/en.json, locales/ru.json) and respect the existing language setting in settings.json.

Proposed Solution

The interface should respect the existing language setting in ~/.claude/settings.json. When "language": "russian" is set, all UI strings (permission dialogs, menu items, buttons) should be displayed in Russian.

Alternatively, a dedicated uiLanguage setting could control the UI locale independently from the model's response language.

There should be locale files (e.g. locales/en.json, locales/ru.json) that the community can contribute translations to.

Alternative Solutions

I've tried using the existing language setting in settings.json — it only affects Claude's text responses, not the UI strings. There is currently no workaround for UI localization; the strings are hardcoded in the extension binary.

Priority

Medium - Would be very helpful

Feature Category

Other

Use Case Example

_No response_

Additional Context

_No response_

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