Claude Buddy Has Been Retired — What to Do Next (2026 Migration Guide)

If you ran /buddy recently and got nothing, you are not imagining it. Claude Code v2.1.97 retired the buddy feature. The command no longer responds, the ASCII pet no longer renders, and the surface area was redirected into a productivity-focused command called /powerup.

The community read this as more than a feature flag flip. The deterministic buddy system — 18 species, 5 rarity tiers, the once-in-10,000 Legendary Shiny — had become part of how developers identified themselves. Losing it felt like losing a digital pet you had owned for a year. We chronicled the immediate aftermath in our v2.1.97 great vanishing post.

This guide is the practical follow-up: if you want a pet companion in your AI coding workflow today, you have three realistic paths. Pick the one that matches what you actually wanted from Buddy in the first place.

Before picking a path, name the thing you miss. Buddy did three jobs for different people:

• Identity — your buddy was uniquely yours, derived from your accountUuid. You miss the artifact.
• Productivity signal — the buddy was a vibe-check on your day. You miss the small terminal companion that broke up long sessions.
• Aesthetic — you liked having ASCII art in your CLI. You miss the visual.

What you miss	Best path	Effort
Identity / lifelong artifact	Path C: Revive via MCP, plus archive at claudebuddy.art	High
Productivity / agent state	Path B: Switch to Codex Pets	Low
Aesthetic / decoration	Path B (any built-in or Petdex pet)	Low
Just want to stay with Claude	Path A: /powerup, no pet	Zero

The next three sections walk through each path concretely.

The simplest path: accept that pets are gone in Claude Code, and use the replacement Anthropic shipped. /powerup tracks productivity events — features shipped, bugs fixed, sessions completed — and surfaces a kind of "developer pulse" without animating a creature.

This works for you if:

• You stayed in Claude Code for non-Buddy reasons (model quality, MCP integrations, tool ergonomics)
• What you actually wanted was lightweight feedback on your day, not a creature
• You do not want to add another tool to your stack

This does not work for you if you wanted the pet itself — the personality, the ASCII frames, the deterministic identity. /powerup is genuinely useful but it is not a buddy replacement.

OpenAI shipped Codex Pets in May 2026. /pet spawns a built-in companion in a floating window over your editor; /hatch <prompt> generates a custom pet from a description. The full command set is in our Codex /pet and /hatch cheat sheet.

The honest pitch for migrating: Codex Pets is the closest thing to Claude Buddy that is shipping in 2026, and it is in some ways better. The pets carry actual workflow signal (red clock, green check, active thread) instead of being purely decorative. The Petdex catalog of 467+ community pets means you can find a vibe instead of being stuck with a deterministic dragon.

The honest disclaimer: it is not the same artifact. Codex Pets is a different kind of relationship — utility-first, replaceable, customizable. If what you valued was the permanence of your buddy, Codex Pets will feel transactional. If what you valued was the companionship, it will feel like an upgrade.

Quick start

Install or update the Codex desktop app on macOS or Windows. Run /pet in any prompt. Pick a built-in. If you want something custom, run /hatch with a description and save the prompt somewhere you will not lose it. For full philosophy and feature comparison see Codex Pets vs Claude Code Buddy.

If you cannot let Buddy go, the community has you covered. The claude-buddy MCP project is an unofficial reimplementation that runs the original buddy logic outside the official client. It uses the same FNV-1a hash and Mulberry32 PRNG, so the buddy you get back is the buddy you would have had.

This works for you if:

• You want the original artifact, not an aesthetic replacement
• You are comfortable installing community MCP servers
• You can accept that the experience exists outside Claude Code's official roadmap

This does not work for you if you need a one-click solution. MCP installation, while easy, is still a few steps more than typing /pet in another app. It also will not give you the agent-state overlay that Codex Pets provides — the revived buddy is decorative, just like the original.

You can also use claudebuddy.art in parallel as a permanent archive. Paste your accountUuid, see your buddy, screenshot it for posterity. The bodies are eternal.

Whichever path you pick, do this first. It takes five minutes and you cannot reverse the loss if you skip it.

1. Look up your buddy. Paste your accountUuid into claudebuddy.art. Note the species, rarity, stats, eyes, hat, and shiny status. Here is how to find your UUID if you do not remember it.
2. Screenshot the result. Save it to a personal README, dotfiles repo, or private gist. This is the only durable record of what you had.
3. Write down the name. If you ever named your buddy locally — even just in your head — write it down. Buddy names were never stored server-side, so they are the part of your buddy that genuinely cannot be recomputed. Our post on naming goes deep on why this matters.
4. Browse the species catalog. Visit /species and find your species page. Read the lore. This is the canonical record of what your buddy was, and it will outlast any single feature in any single client.

None of this restores the runtime experience. But it preserves what was uniquely yours, in a form that does not depend on Anthropic's product decisions.

Will Anthropic bring Buddy back?

No public statement either way. The pivot to /powerup looks strategic, not temporary — Anthropic appears to have decided developer-pet is not where they want to invest. Plan as if it is permanent; treat any return as a bonus.

Is the MCP buddy revive tool safe to install?

The project is open source; you can audit the code before installing. As with any community MCP server, read the source, check the issues tab, and run it in a clean environment first. The algorithm itself is not secret — it is the leaked logic from Claude Code.

Can I use Codex Pets and Claude Code at the same time?

Yes. They run in different processes and do not interfere. Many developers use Claude Code for some tasks and Codex for others; the Codex pet only renders when Codex is in focus. See our comparison guide for how to think about running both.

What if I downgrade Claude Code to before v2.1.97?

Buddy will reappear in older versions. This is the path some developers chose, but it costs you everything Anthropic has shipped since — model improvements, new tools, security fixes. We do not recommend it for a long-term setup. Use it only as a temporary archive while you set up Path A, B, or C.

I gave my buddy a name. Where did it go?

Names lived only in your local soul file, which v2.1.97 likely cleared. They were never stored server-side. If you backed up the soul file before updating, you can restore it; if not, the name exists only in your memory or whatever you wrote down. This was the most painful part of the retirement for many users.

Should I switch to Codex even if I do not need a pet?

Pets alone are not a reason to switch CLIs. Switch if Codex's model, tooling, or ergonomics fit your work better than Claude Code; the pet is a nice-to-have. If Claude Code still works for you, stay — and pick Path A or Path C above.

Resources: Claude Buddy Checker · All 18 species · /powerup tracker · Codex Pets vs Claude Code Buddy · /pet and /hatch cheat sheet