Memory leak on Linux - RAM grows to 20GB+ causing system crash

[Noammandelbaum]

Description

Claude Code consumes excessive memory on Linux, growing to 20GB+ RAM usage during simple conversations, causing system crashes.

Environment

• Claude Code version: 2.1.15
• Node.js version: v24.13.0
• OS: Ubuntu Linux (kernel 6.14.0-37-generic)
• System RAM: 32GB

Steps to Reproduce

1. Start Claude Code on Ubuntu Linux
2. Have a simple conversation (just text, no large files or complex operations)
3. Monitor memory usage with ps aux | grep claude
4. RAM usage grows continuously to 20GB+ within minutes

Expected Behavior

Memory usage should remain reasonable (under 1-2GB) for simple text conversations.

Actual Behavior

• Memory usage grows to 20GB+ (61%+ of 32GB RAM)
• System becomes unresponsive and crashes
• This has caused 5+ system crashes

Additional Context

• This issue does NOT occur on Windows - the same user previously used Claude Code on Windows with only 4GB RAM without any issues
• Cache/history files are normal size (~83MB total in ~/.claude)
• The issue appears to be Linux-specific
• Workaround: Setting NODE_OPTIONS="--max-old-space-size=5120" to limit memory

Workaround

Adding to ~/.bashrc:

export NODE_OPTIONS="--max-old-space-size=5120"

This prevents system crashes but Claude Code may crash when hitting the limit.

[Noammandelbaum]

Update: NODE_OPTIONS does not work because Claude Code is a compiled ELF binary, not a Node.js script.

Working workaround using systemd memory limits:

Add to ~/.bashrc:

alias claude='systemd-run --user --scope -p MemoryMax=5G /path/to/claude/binary'

To find your Claude binary path:

readlink -f $(which claude)

This enforces a hard 5GB limit at the kernel level. If Claude exceeds this, the OOM killer will terminate it instead of crashing the entire system.

[github-actions]

Found 3 possible duplicate issues:

1. Memory Leak: VmPeak reaches 135GB, causes OOM kill #20348
2. [BUG] Memory leak - Claude Code 2.1.2 grows to 6-7GB RAM in short conversations #17483
3. [BUG] Linux Native x64 build - unbounded memory leak even with clean session #12987

This issue will be automatically closed as a duplicate in 3 days.

• If your issue is a duplicate, please close it and 👍 the existing issue instead
• To prevent auto-closure, add a comment or 👎 this comment

🤖 Generated with Claude Code