Claude Code download: what to actually download, per platform

Which download do you mean?

Four different things get called "Claude Code", and only two of them are files you download. Pick your row and skip to it.

The CLI: one command per platform

curl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.sh | bash

irm https://claude.ai/install.ps1 | iex

curl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.cmd -o install.cmd && install.cmd && del install.cmd

All three install the same self-contained binary. There is no Node.js requirement on this path and no Administrator or sudo requirement. On macOS and Linux the binary lands under ~/.local/share/claude/versions/ with a launcher symlink at ~/.local/bin/claude; on Windows it lands under %USERPROFILE%\.local\bin\claude.exe.

claude --version
claude doctor

The desktop app: a real installer

This is the download most people searching for "Claude Code download" are actually after: a graphical app with a session sidebar, visual diff review, an integrated terminal and editor, and app preview, running the same Claude Code engine as the CLI. No terminal required.

The desktop app bundles Claude Code, so you do not need Node.js or a separate CLI install to use it. If you want claude in your terminal as well, install the CLI separately; the two run side by side on the same project and share configuration.

Package managers

If you would rather your normal update workflow owned this, every major package manager has an official Claude Code package. The tradeoff is uniform: package-manager installs do not auto-update by default.

Homebrew has two casks, and it matters

claude-code tracks the stable channel; claude-code@latest tracks the latest channel and gets new versions as soon as they ship. Whichever you install is the one you upgrade and uninstall by name, so note which you chose. At the time of writing the stable cask was on 2.1.220 and the latest cask on 2.1.224.

npm still works, with a caveat

The npm package installs the same native binary as the standalone installer, pulled in through a per-platform optional dependency such as @anthropic-ai/claude-code-darwin-arm64. The installed claude does not invoke Node at runtime. As of v2.1.198 the package declares Node.js 22 or later; on an older Node you get an EBADENGINE warning rather than a failure.

npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code

# if you hit EACCES, fix the prefix instead of escalating
npm config set prefix "$HOME/.npm-global"
export PATH="$HOME/.npm-global/bin:$PATH"

If you genuinely need a file: the release bucket

Air-gapped environments, golden images, and security reviews all need an artefact rather than a piped script. Every Claude Code release publishes its platform binaries alongside a manifest.json that lists a SHA256 checksum for each one, and that manifest carries a detached GPG signature. Verifying the manifest transitively verifies every binary it lists.

curl -fsSL https://downloads.claude.ai/keys/claude-code.asc | gpg --import
gpg --fingerprint security@anthropic.com

REPO=https://downloads.claude.ai/claude-code-releases
VERSION=2.1.89
curl -fsSLO "$REPO/$VERSION/manifest.json"
curl -fsSLO "$REPO/$VERSION/manifest.json.sig"

gpg --verify manifest.json.sig manifest.json

# macOS
shasum -a 256 claude

# Linux
sha256sum claude

# Windows PowerShell
# (Get-FileHash claude.exe -Algorithm SHA256).Hash.ToLower()

Before it will run

• A paid Claude plan: Pro, Max, Team, or Enterprise, or a Claude Console account with API credit. The free Claude.ai plan does not include Claude Code.
• macOS 13.0+, Windows 10 1809+ or Server 2019+, or Ubuntu 20.04+ / Debian 10+ / Alpine 3.19+.
• 4 GB of RAM and an x64 or ARM64 processor.
• A network connection. Claude Code is not a local model and does not run offline.

Questions people ask

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