[Feature] Codex CLI went Rust. When does Claude Code get a CLI-sized memory footprint? (180 MB idle)
Status Open
Reported on v2.1.285
Maintainer reply None cached
Activity 0 comments · opened Sep 30, 2026
Not a bug — everything works. It's the footprint.
Observed (2.1.285, Linux 6.8, tui=fullscreen):
| moment | RSS |
|---|---|
| fresh start, no conversation | ~181 MB |
| claude -c, 34 s after resume | 320 MB |
| end of a multi-hour session | 658 MB |
(measured with ps -o rss -p <pid>)
A prompt in a terminal now uses more memory than several tabs of the browser famous for eating RAM. With several sessions in a multiplexer plus subagents, this multiplies.
OpenAI rewrote Codex CLI in Rust, citing no install dependencies and lower memory. Claude Code's startup footprint keeps growing with each release instead.
Asks
- Is a native rewrite (even of the core) on the roadmap? If so, when?
- If not, at minimum:
- lazy-load modules to cut the idle baseline
- document the expected memory profile by conversation length (normal growth vs leak)
- drop off-screen messages from memory in the default renderer too, as fullscreen does
Repro
Run claude, wait at the prompt, check ps -o rss,etime -p <pid>; then resume a long session with claude -c and check again.