RTL for Claude

Finally — Persian, Arabic, Urdu and every right-to-left language read correctly in the Claude Code chat. Automatic, per-paragraph right-to-left + the gorgeous Vazirmatn font. Your code and English stay exactly as they are.

✨ Features

• 🪄 Automatic — detects each paragraph's direction (smart ratio detection, so a mostly-Persian line stays RTL even when it opens with an English word).
• 🔤 Vazirmatn font — adjustable family, size and line spacing.
• ⌨️ Live compose box — flips to RTL as you type; caret and text stay together.
• 🎛️ Per-message ⇌ override and a global Auto / RTL / LTR toggle.
• 🧩 Never breaks code — code blocks, diffs and terminals stay left-to-right.
• 🔁 Survives updates — re-applies itself automatically after every Claude Code update.
• 🤝 Codex too, if you want — one setting also covers the OpenAI Codex chat with the same fonts and settings, and re-applies it after Codex updates. Offered once, automatically, when Codex is installed.
• 🔒 100% local — no servers, no tracking.

Install

1. Click Install above.
2. Run Developer: Reload Window (Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + P).

That's it — the Claude chat now reads right-to-left. Fine-tune everything from the RTL for Claude panel in the left sidebar, or the quick menu on the status bar.

Without installing the extension

Rather not install anything from the Marketplace? The same patch is available two other ways — the quick one:

npx rtl-for-claude --claude-code

or entirely by hand, from a clone of the repository, so you can read what runs before it runs: bash vscode-extension/apply-rtl.sh.

The extension is still the better option — it re-applies itself after every Claude Code update, while these patches have to be re-run by hand.

Settings

Commands (Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + P)

• RTL for Claude: Turn On / Off
• RTL for Claude: Show / Hide Sidebar Panel
• RTL for Claude: Re-apply to the chat now
• RTL for Claude: Restore original chat — run this before uninstalling.
• RTL for Claude: Open Settings

Keyboard shortcuts

The last two are normal VS Code keybindings — rebind them in Keyboard Shortcuts. The first one lives inside the chat webview (that's where the direction pin is kept, out of reach of the extension host), so it works whenever the chat has focus.

Turning it off / uninstalling

The clean way: toggle Enabled off (or run Restore original chat) — the chat reverts instantly. It's best to do this before you uninstall.

A live chat only updates after a window reload, so uninstalling won't change an already-open chat until you reload. Uninstall attempts an automatic restore on that next reload, but toggling off first is the sure way.

How it works (full transparency)

The Claude chat is a sandboxed webview no extension can reach into at runtime, so RTL for Claude patches Claude Code's own webview/index.css + index.js, compiling your settings into the styles and the RTL engine it injects. Everything runs locally inside the webview — no remote code, no telemetry. Each original file is backed up (*.rtl-backup) and fully restorable. Works with VS Code, Cursor and Windsurf.

With rtlForClaude.codex.enabled, the same treatment covers the Codex extension: a marked, fully reversible block in its webview/index.html loads the same RTL engine. A patch applied with the standalone script is recognised and never removed unless you opt in.

Privacy

100% local. No servers, no analytics — nothing ever leaves your machine.

License

MIT. Bundled Vazirmatn font under SIL OFL 1.1. Source & a no-install script: github.com/mahdigh99/rtl-for-claude.