[FEATURE] Suggest a Nerd Font during onboarding for Windows users — default Consolas tofus the TUI indicator glyphs
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
Summary
On a fresh Windows 11 install, opening a PowerShell window uses the legacy
console host (conhost.exe) with the default font Consolas. Consolas is
missing glyphs for several codepoints that Claude Code's TUI emits — notably
the mode-indicator icons next to status rows like auto mode on, and a
handful of hyphen / NBSP variants (U+2011, U+2010, U+2012, U+2212, U+00A0)
that appear in pasted prose and identifiers.
The result: a new Windows user sees tofu boxes (□) in the TUI and broken
glyphs in their own text, with no in-product guidance on how to fix it.
## Environment
- Windows 11 Pro 26200
- PowerShell 7+ (
pwsh.exe) launched in legacy conhost (NOT Windows Terminal) - Default console font:
Consolas - Claude Code v2.1.150
- Codepage: 65001 (UTF-8) via
chcp 65001— encoding is fine, this is purely
a font glyph-coverage issue
## What I see
- Tofu (
□□) immediately preceding theauto mode onindicator row - The
⎿tool-result connector renders inconsistently across some installs - U+2011 / U+00A0 in user prose come through as broken-glyph boxes
## Root cause (confirmed)
Not an encoding bug. Switching the console font to Cascadia Code NF
(Microsoft variant, free, SIL OFL, downloadable from
https://github.com/microsoft/cascadia-code/releases) resolves every Claude
Code TUI glyph cleanly. The hyphen / NBSP set also renders correctly under
Cascadia Code NF. Note: Microsoft's NF variant does NOT include the broader
Nerd Font icon library — but for Claude Code itself, that subset is enough.
Proposed Solution
Suggestion
Add a one-time onboarding hint to Claude Code's first-run experience on
Windows when the active console font is detected to be Consolas (or any font
lacking key glyphs Claude Code emits). For example:
> "Your terminal font (Consolas) is missing glyphs Claude Code uses for its
> TUI. To fix this, install Cascadia Code NF
> (https://github.com/microsoft/cascadia-code/releases) and select it in your
> console Properties → Font tab. This is a one-time setup."
Even a single line in the Windows install docs or in the npm install
post-install message would save users a few minutes of confusion about why
their TUI looks broken when codepages and encodings are correctly set.
Alternative Solutions
_No response_
Priority
Low - Nice to have
Feature Category
CLI commands and flags
Use Case Example
_No response_
Additional Context
_No response_
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