[Bug] claude-hud causes infinite memory spike & terminal freeze in official Claude Code 2.1.133

[Charlee-du]

Summary

When the third-party tool claude-hud is installed, launching the official Claude Code 2.1.133 (installed via official distribution, not npm) results in an unresponsive terminal and uncontrolled memory growth, leading to system instability. The issue is fully resolved by uninstalling claude-hud.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Install official Claude Code 2.1.133 (via official installer, NOT npm).
2. Install claude-hud globally:

   npm install -g claude-hud

3. Launch Claude Code in terminal:

   claude
   # or
   claude -c

4. Observe terminal behavior and memory usage.

Expected Behavior

Claude Code should start normally, render the interface correctly, and maintain stable memory usage. Third-party tools should not cause the application to freeze or leak memory infinitely.

Actual Behavior

• The terminal becomes completely unresponsive immediately after launch.
• Process memory usage grows uncontrollably, exceeding 3GB within seconds and continuing to rise.
• No normal output, native status bar, or UI elements are displayed.
• The only way to stop the process is to force-quit it.

Environment

• OS: macOS
• Node/Bun version: Node.js bundled with official Claude Code
• Claude Code version: 2.1.133 (official distribution)
• Third-party tools: claude-hud (latest release)

Logs or Screenshots

(Upload your screenshots here: terminal freeze, memory usage spike, etc.)

Additional Notes

This appears to be a compatibility conflict between claude-hud and the updated terminal rendering/stream handling logic introduced in Claude Code v2.1.118+. The plugin likely hijacks stdout/stderr streams, triggering an infinite render loop and catastrophic memory leak.

[jarrodwatts]

Thanks for the report. I am keeping this open as high-priority triage, but I need concrete process evidence before changing the plugin.

Please add:

1. The exact statusLine.command from ~/.claude/settings.json or your active Claude config.
2. The installed claude-hud version and install method.
3. Which process grows in Activity Monitor (claude, node, bun, or another child process).
4. Whether removing only the statusLine block from settings resolves the freeze, without uninstalling the plugin package.
5. Any terminal output from running the configured HUD command manually with a small stdin payload.

Current code review did not find stdout/stderr hooking or a persistent background process in claude-hud. The plugin is invoked by Claude Code as a short-lived statusline command, so the next step is to identify the exact command and process that loops on this machine.