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Fix claude-code installing files owned by root #229

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Merged
koralowiec merged 1 commit into from
Jun 18, 2026
+14 −4
Merged

Fix claude-code installing files owned by root #229

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2 changes: 1 addition & 1 deletion src/claude-code/devcontainer-feature.json
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Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
{
"id": "claude-code",
"version": "2.0.1",
"version": "2.0.2",
"name": "claude-code",
"documentationURL": "http://github.com/devcontainers-extra/features/tree/main/src/claude-code",
"description": "Claude Code is an agentic coding tool that lives in your terminal",
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14 changes: 11 additions & 3 deletions src/claude-code/install.sh
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Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -5,10 +5,18 @@ set -e
# Install via Anthropic's recommended method
# Script downloaded from them:
# https://storage.googleapis.com/claude-code-dist-86c565f3-f756-42ad-8dfa-d59b1c096819/claude-code-releases/bootstrap.sh
bash "$(dirname "$0")/bootstrap.sh" "$VERSION"

# Resolve the absolute path before su changes the working directory
BOOTSTRAP_SCRIPT="$(pwd)/bootstrap.sh"

# Run as the devcontainer user so that ~/.claude/, ~/.local/bin/claude, and
# ~/.local/share/claude/ are owned by the right user, not root.
su - "$_REMOTE_USER" <<EOF
bash "$BOOTSTRAP_SCRIPT" "$VERSION"
EOF

# Copy the binary to /usr/local/bin for global access
# It's installed in /root/.local/bin/claude and there's no option to override the install location
cp "$HOME/.local/bin/claude" /usr/local/bin/claude
# It's installed in ~/.local/bin/claude and there's no option to override the install location
cp "$_REMOTE_USER_HOME/.local/bin/claude" /usr/local/bin/claude

@ZhiliangWu ZhiliangWu Jun 19, 2026

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Question: _REMOTE_USER_HOME empty in certain setups?

Hi @brianhelba — after this PR landed, I'm seeing a build failure on line 20:

cp: cannot stat '/.local/bin/claude': No such file or directory
ERROR: Feature "claude-code" failed to install!

The su - "$_REMOTE_USER" step works fine (Claude installs successfully to the user's home), but the subsequent cp resolves to /.local/bin/claude — suggesting
_REMOTE_USER_HOME is empty in my build context.

My setup uses a custom base image (Ubuntu 24.04/CUDA) with common-utils creating the user and "remoteUser": "${localEnv:USER}" in the devcontainer config. Pinning
back to v2.0.0 resolves the issue.

Is _REMOTE_USER_HOME expected to always be available at this point in the feature lifecycle? Or would it be safer to fall back to resolving the home directory from
passwd, e.g.:

: "${_REMOTE_USER_HOME:=$(eval echo ~"$_REMOTE_USER")}"
cp "$_REMOTE_USER_HOME/.local/bin/claude" /usr/local/bin/claude


echo 'Done!'
2 changes: 2 additions & 0 deletions test/claude-code/test_debian.sh
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Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -5,5 +5,7 @@ set -e
source dev-container-features-test-lib

check "claude is installed" claude --version
check "~/.claude is owned by the current user" test "$(stat -c %u "$HOME/.claude")" = "$(id -u)"
check "~/.local/share/claude is owned by the current user" test "$(stat -c %u "$HOME/.local/share/claude")" = "$(id -u)"

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