claude-better

Skill by 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

• Faster cold starts: --help goes from 182ms → 49ms; chat session bootstrap from 311ms → 102ms
• Lower memory: sustained interactive sessions drop from ~412MB → ~83MB RSS
• Drop-in compatible: 100% pass rate on primary command forms, 100% exit-code match, 98.7% byte-for-byte output parity
• Zero migration cost: existing scripts, aliases, and muscle memory continue to work unchanged

Availability

⚠️ Source code is provided for selected high-profile customers only and available upon request. Contact the maintainer at 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

Scripting Patterns

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