Spurious 'missing or broken' warning for Homebrew installations

Resolved 💬 2 comments Opened Jun 21, 2026 by joshyim Closed Jun 21, 2026

Description

When Claude Code is installed via Homebrew, the CLI shows an error message indicating the binary at ~/.local/bin/claude is missing or broken. This path is the default npm global install location, but is not relevant for Homebrew installations where the binary lives at /opt/homebrew/bin/claude.

Steps to Reproduce

  1. Install Claude Code via Homebrew (brew install claude)
  2. Launch claude
  3. Observe error about ~/.local/bin/claude missing or broken

Expected Behavior

No error should be shown. The CLI should detect that it is running successfully (regardless of install method) and not warn about a path that was never expected to exist.

Actual Behavior

An error message is displayed indicating /Users/<user>/.local/bin/claude is missing or broken, even though the Homebrew-installed binary at /opt/homebrew/bin/claude is functioning correctly.

Environment

  • OS: macOS (Darwin 25.5.0, Apple Silicon)
  • Install method: Homebrew
  • Claude binary location: /opt/homebrew/bin/claude
  • ~/.local/bin/claude: Does not exist (expected for Homebrew installs)

Suggested Fix

The startup check should either:

  • Use which claude / the running process path instead of hardcoding ~/.local/bin/claude
  • Skip the check when the binary is already running successfully
  • Only warn about the path relevant to the detected install method

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