CC Companion
Your coding buddy pet for Claude Code — alive in your statusline while you work.
Anthropic removed /buddy in Claude Code v2.1.97. CC Companion brings it back as a native plugin — no MCP server overhead, no background processes. Just skills, hooks, and shell scripts.
Beyond the classic sprite mode with speech bubbles and pet hearts, CC Companion offers hud mode with full stats and session info, a screensaver that parades random pets like opening blind boxes, the all-in-one combined mode, and — new in v7 — a review mode where your companion independently reviews every code change using a separate API call.
Why a Plugin, Not MCP?
Similar tools use MCP servers with 17+ tool schemas — all loaded into every single message, burning tokens even when idle. CC Companion takes a different approach:
- Skills — load only when you invoke them. Zero cost when not in use.
- Hooks — lightweight shell scripts, no server process.
- Statusline — a simple Bun script, no daemon.
No background processes. No idle token overhead. Just a plugin that works.
Installation
/plugin marketplace add zigizhujian/cc-companion
/plugin install cc-companion
Requires Bun — Currently, only user-level installation is supported. Project-level installation will not work correctly.
Commands
| Command | Description |
|---|
/cc-companion:companion | Show your companion (ASCII art, stats, rarity) |
/cc-companion:companion-customize | Choose your own species, rarity, eyes, hat |
/cc-companion:companion-statusline | Toggle companion statusline on/off |
/cc-companion:companion-pet | Pet your companion |
/cc-companion:companion-collection | Save, list, switch, or remove favorite pets |
/cc-companion:companion-screensaver | Toggle screensaver mode on/off |
/cc-companion:companion-review-log | Show recent review history (last 10 entries with timestamp, reaction, model) |
Your Companion
Run /cc-companion:companion to see your pet — species, rarity, eyes, hat, and stats. On first use it will ask you to give your companion a name.
Customization
/cc-companion:companion-customize walks you through choosing species, rarity, eyes, hat, and shiny. The plugin brute-force searches for a matching salt using Bun.hash — usually under 2 seconds.
Once you have a pet you like, save it to your collection with /cc-companion:companion-collection.
Statusline Display Modes
Run /cc-companion:companion-statusline to enable the statusline. Then set displayMode in ~/.claude/plugins/cc-companion/config.json.
"sprite" — minimal right-aligned pet (animated sprite or screensaver pet)
Your companion tucked in the corner with name above. Closest to the original CC buddy UI.
"hud" — animated sprite or screensaver pet + stats + session info
"combined" — screensaver pet (random or collection) on the left, your pet on the right, both animated
Pet
Run /cc-companion:companion-pet to pet your companion. Floating hearts appear for a few seconds. Works on the right-side sprite in combined and sprite modes.
Speech Bubble
Two modes — toggle via /cc-companion:companion-statusline → "Change speech bubble mode", or set speechBubble in config.
"review" — AI code reviewer (recommended)
Your companion independently reviews every code change you make. After each turn, a lightweight API call reads the actual tool use from the conversation transcript — Edit diffs, Write content, Bash commands — and sends them to a separate Claude instance for review. Your companion flags real issues (injection, null access, race conditions) or reacts to the conversation.
