"Update available" banner shown even when on latest Homebrew version

[sachintaksande-tomtom]

Description

Claude Code shows an "update available" notification even when the user is running the latest version installed via Homebrew (brew upgrade claude-code confirms already up to date).

Environment

• Installation method: Homebrew cask (brew install claude-code)
• Current version: 2.1.81
• Platform: macOS (Darwin 25.3.0, Apple Silicon)

Steps to reproduce

1. Install Claude Code via Homebrew: brew install claude-code
2. Ensure it's up to date: brew update && brew upgrade claude-code → "already installed"
3. Launch claude — "update available" banner is displayed

Expected behavior

No "update available" banner when the user is on the latest version available through their installation method (Homebrew).

Actual behavior

"Update available" banner is shown despite being on the latest Homebrew version.

Notes

• The npm package @anthropic-ai/claude-code is deprecated (per the Claude Code GitHub page), so Homebrew is now the recommended install method on macOS.
• The update check likely still queries the npm registry, which creates a false positive for Homebrew users if versions are out of sync or if the check doesn't account for the Homebrew distribution channel.

[rolansh]

From my perspective, this is a Homebrew packaging issue rather than a Claude Code issue — Homebrew will always lag slightly behind official releases, but it appears to have been
stuck on v2.1.81 since that version was published. As of writing, the current release is v2.1.90.
The recommended way to install Claude Code on macOS is:
curl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.sh | bash
That said, the Homebrew formula not tracking releases for 9+ versions is worth investigating on the Homebrew side.

[RicoSchueppel]

Same issue here. Running 2.1.84 installed via Homebrew on macOS. The banner says "Update available! Run: brew upgrade claude-code" — but brew upgrade does nothing because the Homebrew cask is still at 2.1.84, while the latest GitHub release is 2.1.92.

claude update doesn't help either:

$ claude update
Current version: 2.1.84
Checking for updates to latest version...

Claude is managed by Homebrew.
Claude is up to date!

So the update notification tells me to update, but both brew upgrade claude-code and claude update say I'm already up to date. The only workaround would be to switch to a completely different installation method (e.g. npm), which shouldn't be necessary.

The CLI should either:

• not show the banner until the Homebrew cask actually has the newer version available, or
• offer a way to install the latest version directly, bypassing the cask.

Environment:

• macOS Darwin 25.3.0 (Apple Silicon)
• Claude Code 2.1.84 (Homebrew cask)
• Latest GitHub release: 2.1.92

[Franky4242]

I have the same issue with winget version (on Windows :-)). (I am using winget because the recommended way did not work anymore for me. Claude was launching and cursor was blinking indefinitely). version is 2.1.91 (the latest for winget)

[armcknight]

I don't know why there are two different formulas, maybe they have some kind of LTS and bleeding edge release channel split, but there are both https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-cask/blob/main/Casks/c/claude-code.rb and https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-cask/blob/main/Casks/c/claude-code%40latest.rb

They both point to the same google storage bucket so they seem legit, but they have different accounts committing to them. claude-code@latest currently points to 2.1.92.

[darthShadow]

Docs for the 2 release channels: https://code.claude.com/docs/en/setup#configure-release-channel

And the wrong update notification was fixed in the latest release 2.1.92:

Fixed Homebrew install update prompts to use the cask's release channel (claude-code → stable, claude-code@latest → latest)

[dannguyen]

Have been getting this same issue since using Claude for at least the past half year, and finally googled it and landed here, which is how I'm finding out I should be at least 2.1.92 🤷

Seems like automating the pushing of updates to Homebrew could be something Claude's agent could easily do, and worth setting up since it has ~171,000 installs in the last 30 days. Though maybe not, given npm's claude-code page stats shows 10,000,000+ installs a week(1)

[claude]

This is a duplicate of #43251, which was fixed as of version 2.1.101.

[sachintaksande-tomtom]

confirmed. The issue is fixed in Claude Code v2.1.104

[github-actions]

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