Claude Code WSL2 Setup

Fixes for the most annoying Claude Code papercuts on WSL2 + Windows Terminal.

Most of these (image paste, notifications, CapsLock→Esc, voice) bridge WSL2 to the Windows host and are WSL-specific. But the LSP, statusline, MCP, and Playwright CLI guides are plain Claude Code config — they work on any Linux or macOS too.

Turn on LSP so Claude reads code like an IDE, not grep

Out of the box Claude Code falls back to text search when it needs to find a function or trace a reference. That's why "find the auth handler" sometimes drifts into the wrong file.

LSP plugins ship with Claude Code since v2.0.74 — they wire Claude into the same language servers VSCode uses for Go-to-Definition. Once the four official plugins are installed and the binaries are on your PATH:

• "add a stripe webhook to my payments page" jumps straight to the existing payment module
• "fix the auth bug on my dashboard" follows the actual call hierarchy instead of guessing
• After every edit Claude picks up type errors immediately instead of finding them 10 prompts later

It also saves tokens, because Claude stops scrolling through files that don't match.

2-minute setup. TypeScript, Python, Go, Rust. → LSP setup guide

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Preview

video-site | main | [████░░░░░░] 42% | 5h:28% | W:4%

Balloon tip fires on Stop and PermissionRequest, skipped when Windows Terminal is focused

Birchline HTML skill — single-file document-style artifacts with tabs, cards, and before/after panels

What it fixes

• Image paste — copy a screenshot on Windows and paste the file path straight into Claude Code or Codex. A small Go daemon (wsl-screenshot-cli) polls the Windows clipboard, saves new screenshots under /tmp/.wsl-screenshot-cli/, and rewrites the clipboard so paste returns the WSL path.
• Shift+Enter newline — insert a newline without submitting, in both the VSCode integrated terminal and Windows Terminal.
• CapsLock → Escape — remap CapsLock to Escape system-wide via SharpKeys (registry-level, works in WSL2, Vim, games, and elevated processes).
• "Needs your input" Windows notification — fires when Claude finishes a task or asks for permission, and is suppressed automatically when Windows Terminal is already focused. WSL2 variant uses a balloon tip; the native PowerShell variant uses a modern Windows toast.
• Status line — project directory, git branch, context-window fill bar, and 5-hour / 7-day usage, color-coded by severity.
• Settings tweaks — disable the Co-authored-by: Claude git attribution and pre-accept the project trust dialog.
• Windows browser — open links and OAuth flows in your existing Windows browser instead of Chromium inside WSL2.
• Voice mode — fix ALSA errors so /voice works, routing audio through WSLg's PulseAudio server.

Setup

git clone https://github.com/congmnguyen/claude-code-wsl2-setup.git
cd claude-code-wsl2-setup
claude

Then prompt:

Set this up

Claude will read the docs and configure everything.

What's included

File	Fix
lsp-setup.md	LSP — official plugins + language servers for TypeScript, Python, Go, Rust
image-paste.md	Screenshot paste — wsl-screenshot-cli daemon + optional Alt+V keybinding
shift-enter.md	Shift+Enter newline in VSCode terminal and Windows Terminal
claude-notify.md	Windows balloon tip — WSL2 variant for Claude Code Stop / PermissionRequest hooks and Codex notify
claude-notify-powershell.md + claude-hook-toast.ps1	Windows toast — native PowerShell variant
statusline.md	Status line — project dir, git branch, context bar, 5h / 7d usage
settings.md	Disable git attribution, skip trust dialog
browser.md	Open links in your Windows browser via BROWSER env var
mcp-setup.md	DeepWiki, Playwright, and Figma Desktop MCP servers
playwright-cli.md	Playwright CLI — token-efficient browser automation; preferred over Playwright MCP for coding agents
voice.md	Voice mode — ALSA → PulseAudio → WSLg bridge, ~/.asoundrc + PULSE_SERVER
capslock-esc.md	CapsLock → Escape — registry-level remap via SharpKeys (Windows-side only)

Custom agents and skills

Path	Contents
agents/	code-architect, code-simplifier
skills/	birchline-html, commit-push-pr, dedupe, deep-teach, frontend-design, handoff, oncall-triage, spec
codex-skills/	Codex-native versions: code-review, commit-push-pr, dedupe, frontend-design, handoff, oncall-triage, spec

Copy agents/ and skills/ to ~/.claude/agents/ and ~/.claude/skills/ for Claude Code. Copy codex-skills/ to ~/.codex/skills/ for Codex.

Recommended third-party skills

Skills not authored here but worth installing alongside the setup:

• liteparse (LlamaIndex, MIT) — parse PDF, DOCX, PPTX, XLSX, and images locally with no cloud calls. Useful for feeding unstructured documents into Claude or Codex without uploading them. Try it in the browser first: simonw.github.io/liteparse. Then install the npm package globally and copy the upstream SKILL.md into ~/.claude/skills/liteparse/:

  npm i -g @llamaindex/liteparse
  sudo apt-get install -y libreoffice   # required for DOCX/PPTX/XLSX

License

MIT — feel free to copy, fork, or adapt for your own setup.