claude-trace no longer works with "native binary" installs

[ljw1004]

Claude Code recently switched to a "native binary" (actually a self-contained Bun bundle, containing nodejs-alternative runtime, plus the original source code).

Claude-trace doesn't yet work with this.

To make it work, claude-trace would need to recognize that it's a Bun bundle, extract out the .js file, and run it as normal.

[zhiyanliu]

I'm not sure if this is useful or related:

I installed Claude Trace via NPM using the command npm install -g @mariozechner/claude-trace, and Claude Code was installed in the $HOME directory (.claude/local/claude). Using the latest Claude Code, version 2.0.26, I noticed that captured conversations returned zero results. Therefore, I suspect the tracer may no longer be effective with the latest Claude code implementation mechanism.

[andrewsiah]

Similar experience.

🚀 Claude Trace
Starting Claude with traffic logging

🔄 Starting traffic logger...
📁 Logs will be written to: .claude-trace/log-YYYY-MM-DD-HH-MM-SS.{jsonl,html}

Uncaught exception: /Users/andrewsiah/.local/share/claude/versions/2.0.31:1
����



SyntaxError: Invalid or unexpected token
    at wrapSafe (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1691:18)
    at Module._compile (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1734:20)
    at Object..js (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1893:10)
    at Module.load (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1480:32)
    at Module._load (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1299:12)
    at TracingChannel.traceSync (node:diagnostics_channel:328:14)
    at wrapModuleLoad (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:244:24)
    at Module.executeUserEntryPoint [as runMain] (node:internal/modules/run_main:154:5)
    at node:internal/main/run_main_module:33:47
Cleaning up orphaned requests...
Cleanup complete. Logged 0 pairs
Cleaning up orphaned requests...
Cleanup complete. Logged 0 pairs

⚠️  Claude exited with code: 1
(analytics) ➜  Excer git:(dev-dataroom) ✗ 

[jmbenedetto]

Same here with the exact message as @andrewsiah .

[kenneth-liao]

Same here

[AmirNamdar]

Same here

[spikelab]

dunno that it's of any help, but getting the exact same error as @andrewsiah

[kenneth-liao]

If you don't have a strong reason for using the native installation, you can simply uninstall and switch to the NPM (Node) version and you will be able to use claude-trace normally. I switched just to continue using claude-trace.

And if you have trouble uninstalling your native CC, run which claude to see the install location and simply delete the whole folder. Do this at your own risk! I recommend saving any settings or files such as hooks, commands, agents, etc. before you delete.

[eliminyro]

@kenneth-liao Installing claude via npm is deprecated now, so there is a strong reason to use the native installation.
Last changes made to claude-trace section of the repository were 5 months ago. Overall repo changes are in 6-8 months range. Feels like it is abandoned at this point.

[shenrf]

For anyone hitting this on Windows — I've published a working patch that adds reverse proxy mode for native binaries:

https://github.com/shenrf/win-claude-trace

It detects native binaries (PE/ELF/Mach-O) via magic bytes, starts a local HTTP reverse proxy, and sets ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL to route Claude's API traffic through it. Same JSONL + HTML output as the original claude-trace.

One-line install (after npm install -g @mariozechner/claude-trace):

git clone https://github.com/shenrf/win-claude-trace.git
cp win-claude-trace/dist/*.js "$(npm root -g)/@mariozechner/claude-trace/dist/"

Based on the approach from PR #56 with additional Windows fixes (where.exe, MSYS path conversion, npm wrapper resolution).

[classmatewu]

Same here