claude-better

---

name: claude-better-cli

description: Compatibility-first Claude CLI reimplementation with faster startup, lower memory, and drop-in command compatibility

triggers:

- use claude-better

- faster claude cli

- claude cli startup performance

- replace claude cli with claude-better

- claude-better harness

- drop-in claude cli replacement

- optimize claude cli memory usage

- claude-better compatibility

---

# claude-better

> Skill by [ara.so](https://ara.so) — Daily 2026 Skills collection.

`claude-better` is a compatibility-first reimplementation of the Claude CLI focused on aggressive performance improvements: up to 73% faster startup and up to 80% lower resident memory, while maintaining 100% command-level compatibility with the original Claude CLI.

What It Does

Availability

> ⚠️ Source code is provided for selected high-profile customers only and available upon request. Contact the maintainer at [krzyzanowskim/claude-better](https://github.com/krzyzanowskim/claude-better) for access.

If you have access, install as described in your onboarding materials. The binary is a drop-in replacement — substitute it wherever you invoke `claude`.

Installation (Once You Have Access)

# Typical binary drop-in replacement pattern
# Place the claude-better binary in your PATH before the original claude
export PATH="/path/to/claude-better/bin:$PATH"

# Verify it's being picked up
which claude
claude --version

# Or alias it explicitly without touching PATH
alias claude='/path/to/claude-better/bin/claude-better'

Key Commands

`claude-better` mirrors the Claude CLI surface exactly. All commands you know work as-is:

# Show help (cold start: ~49ms vs 182ms baseline)
claude --help

# Check auth status (warm start: ~58ms vs 146ms baseline)
claude auth status

# Start an interactive chat session (~102ms bootstrap vs 311ms baseline)
claude chat

# One-shot non-interactive command (~131ms vs 428ms baseline)
claude -p "Summarize this file" < input.txt

# All standard flags pass through unchanged
claude --model claude-opus-4-5 chat
claude --output-format json -p "List 3 facts about Rust"

Configuration

`claude-better` reads the same configuration as the original Claude CLI. No new config format is required.

# Standard Claude CLI env vars are respected
export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=$ANTHROPIC_API_KEY

# The tool reads ~/.claude/ config directory as normal
# No migration of config files needed

Performance Characteristics

| Scenario | Baseline | claude-better | Improvement |

|---|---|---|---|

| `--help` cold start | 182ms | 49ms | 73% faster |

| `auth status` warm | 146ms | 58ms | 60% faster |

| `chat` bootstrap | 311ms | 102ms | 67% faster |

| One-shot command | 428ms | 131ms | 69% faster |

| RSS after 30min session | 412MB | 83MB | 80% less |

| Streaming jitter p95 | 91ms | 24ms | 74% lower |

Scripting Patterns

Since compatibility is 100%, all existing scripting patterns work unchanged:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
# Existing Claude CLI scripts work without modification

# Non-interactive pipeline usage
echo "Explain this error:" | cat - error.log | claude -p /dev/stdin

# Exit code handling (100% compatible)
if claude auth status; then
  echo "Authenticated"
else
  echo "Not authenticated — run: claude auth login"
  exit 1
fi

# JSON output parsing
claude --output-format json -p "What is 2+2?" | jq '.content'

#!/usr/bin/env bash
# Long-lived interactive session — memory pressure is significantly reduced
# Useful on memory-constrained machines (laptops, CI runners)
claude chat

Compatibility Notes

Troubleshooting

**Binary not found after install**

# Ensure claude-better/bin is earlier in PATH than original claude
echo $PATH | tr ':' '\n' | grep -n claude
which claude  # should point to claude-better

**Unexpected output differences**

# 1.3% of outputs differ before normalization (timestamps, whitespace, terminal width)
# If a script breaks on exact output matching, add normalization:
claude -p "..." | tr -s ' ' | sed 's/[[:space:]]*$//'

**Auth not recognized**

# claude-better reads the same auth store as the original CLI
# If auth fails, re-authenticate via the standard flow:
claude auth login

**Falling back to original CLI**

# If you hit an edge case, unset the alias/PATH change to revert instantly
unalias claude
# or
export PATH="<original-path-without-claude-better>"

Architecture Notes (For Contributors / Evaluators)

The performance gains come from specific implementation choices documented in the README: