An interactive CLI to preview, search, and pick the exact /buddy companion you want — then patch the binary to make it happen.
npx buddy-pickOr install globally:
npm install -g buddy-pick
buddy-pickView all 18 species ASCII art side-by-side with eye styles, hat types, and rarity tiers — directly in your terminal.
Filter by species, rarity, eyes, hat, and shiny status. buddy-pick iterates candidate salts at thousands per second (via a bun subprocess for hash accuracy) and finds the perfect companion for you.
Your personal companion collection. Every patched buddy is automatically saved to the Claudex (~/.config/buddy-pick/claudex.json). When a Claude Code update overwrites your binary, open the Claudex and re-apply any saved companion with one click — no bruteforcing needed. You can also preview, rename, or delete entries.
Change your companion's name without modifying the binary. Writes directly to ~/.claude.json — takes effect immediately, no restart needed.
Enter any 15-character salt and instantly see what companion it would produce — species, rarity, stats, hat, eyes, and shiny status — all rendered in a boxed card with stat bars.
One-click restore to the original binary from the .buddy-pick.bak backup.
All 18 companion species, rendered in ASCII:
Duck Goose Blob
__ (·> .----.
<(· )___ || ( · · )
( ._> _(__)_ ( )
`--´ ^^^^ `----´
Cat Dragon Octopus
/\_/\ /^\ /^\ .----.
( · ·) < · · > ( · · )
( ω ) ( ~~ ) (______)
(")_(") `-vvvv-´ /\/\/\/\
Owl Penguin Turtle
/\ /\ .---. _,--._
((·)(·)) (·>·) ( · · )
( >< ) /( )\ /[______]\
`----´ `---´ `` ``
Snail Ghost Axolotl
· .--. .----. }~(______)~{
\ ( @ ) / · · \ }~(· .. ·)~{
\_`--´ | | ( .--. )
~~~~~~~ ~`~``~`~ (_/ \_)
Capybara Cactus Robot
n______n n ____ n .[||].
( · · ) | |· ·| | [ · · ]
( oo ) |_| |_| [ ==== ]
`------´ | | `------´
Rabbit Mushroom Chonk
(\__/) .-o-OO-o-. /\ /\
( · · ) (__________) ( · · )
=( .. )= |· ·| ( .. )
(")__(") |____| `------´
Non-common companions can wear one of 7 hats:
crown tophat propeller halo
\^^^/ [___] -+- ( )
.----. .----. .----. .----.
( · · ) ( · · ) ( · · ) ( · · )
( ) ( ) ( ) ( )
`----´ `----´ `----´ `----´
wizard beanie tinyduck
/^\ (___) ,>
.----. .----. .----.
( · · ) ( · · ) ( · · )
( ) ( ) ( )
`----´ `----´ `----´
Six eye styles: · ✦ × ◉ @ °
| Rarity | Stars | Chance | Stat Floor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Common | ★ | 60% | 5 |
| Uncommon | ★★ | 25% | 15 |
| Rare | ★★★ | 10% | 25 |
| Epic | ★★★★ | 4% | 35 |
| Legendary | ★★★★★ | 1% | 50 |
Plus a 1% shiny chance on any rarity.
Claude Code generates companions deterministically:
userId + SALT ─→ wyhash ─→ mulberry32 PRNG ─→ rarity ─→ species ─→ eyes ─→ hat ─→ shiny ─→ stats
The SALT is a 15-byte string baked into the Claude binary. Same user + same salt = same companion, every time. buddy-pick finds the salt using a nearby immutable constant as a structural anchor, previews what different salts produce, and patches the binary when you've found your match.
The production binary uses Bun.hash() (wyhash). No npm package produces matching output — we tested wyhash (v1.0.0) and xxhash-wasm, both differ. So buddy-pick spawns a long-lived bun process and pipes hash requests through stdin/stdout. Falls back to FNV-1a with a warning if bun isn't available.
- Claude Code >= 2.1.89 (buddy system introduced in this version)
- Node.js >= 18
- Bun (recommended — auto-detected for accurate hash computation)
- Auto-updates overwrite patches — Claude Code updates replace the binary. Re-run buddy-pick to re-apply. Your backup is preserved.
- Hash accuracy requires bun — Without bun, previews use FNV-1a and may not match production.
- Restart needed after patching — The running Claude Code instance loads the binary at startup. Restart it after patching to see your new companion.
MIT
