Enable Claude Code auto-updates for non-root users

[bijancamp]

Problem

Automatic updates fail when using a non-root user for spawning processes in the container (i.e., via the remoteUser setting in devcontainer.json).

When the container user is root, auto-updating works because the owner of the @anthropic-ai install directory (in npm root --global) is root:

drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Nov 27 05:38 @anthropic-ai

However, when using a non-root user (e.g., \"remoteUser\": \"vscode\"), the user no longer has write permissions to the directory, since the owner is root and the directory is not group-writable:

drwxr-sr-x 3 root   nvm 4096 Nov 27 05:48 @anthropic-ai

Feature installation scripts are run as root, so when the Claude Code process runs as the configured non-root remoteUser, Claude Code is prevented from updating its own installation.

Solution

Make Claude Code's install directory group-writable after installation. This approach is consistent with:

• How the Node.js feature handles it, which makes everything group-writable
• Discussion in the devcontainers org

The change adds chmod -R g+rw to the @anthropic-ai directory after installation, allowing non-root users to get automatic updates for Claude Code.

Fixes #27

🤖 Generated with Claude Code