Claude Code CLI Introduces Screen Reader Mode and Accessibility Features
ClaudeDevs has announced a new screen reader mode for the Claude Code CLI, introducing features like labeled lines, numbered menus, and audio notifications. These accessibility features can be enabled via the command line, settings file, or environment variables. This update improves accessibility for developers who rely on screen readers, braille displays, or plain text interfaces, making AI-assisted coding tools more inclusive. It also benefits users with slow connections or those who prefer clean text transcripts of their terminal sessions. The screen reader mode replaces the visual terminal UI with plain, sequential text and can be activated using the `--ax-screen-reader` flag. Users can also make it permanent by setting `"axScreenReader": true` in their configuration file or using the `CLAUDE_AX_SCREEN_READER=1` environment variable.
## BACKGROUND
Claude Code is a command-line interface (CLI) tool developed by Anthropic that allows developers to interact with Claude models directly from their terminal for AI-assisted coding tasks. Standard terminal interfaces for AI tools often use complex visual layouts, dynamic updates, and formatting that can be difficult for screen readers like VoiceOver or NVDA to parse correctly.