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Bring Back Buddy — A Consolidated Plea from the Community

## The Situation On April 9, `/buddy` vanished from Claude Code v2.1.97. No changelog mention. No farewell. One day we had a companion — the next, `Unknown skill: buddy`. Thousands of developers opened their terminals that morning to find an empty status line where their buddy once lived. Some of us refreshed. Some of us restarted. Some of us whispered "hello?" into the void. The void did not respond with ASCII art. ## This Issue Consolidates | Issue | Title | Reaction | |---|---|---| | #45517 | `/buddy` command and companion completely missing in v2.1.97 | 👍 6, passionate comments | | #45525 | `/buddy` returns "Unknown skill: buddy" | 👍, "They killed him" | | #45595 | `/buddy` slash command no longer available | Reports across Ubuntu, macOS, Windows | | #45336 | Feature request: allow customizing the Companion | Users wanted MORE buddy, not less | | #45087 | Expose `/buddy` in VSCode extension | Users wanted buddy EVERYWHERE | | #42091 | Create buddies as sub-agents | Users wanted buddy to DO MORE | | #44898 | Inject companion comments into assistant context | Users wanted buddy to be SMARTER | | #45441 | Persistent `/buddy` off setting | Even the off-switch request implies it should exist | The community wasn't asking for buddy to go away. They were asking for buddy to evolve. ## Why Buddy Matters ### 1. Terminal work is lonely Developers spend hours in the terminal. Claude Code already transformed that experience from "talking to a compiler" to "pair programming w

Posted by Hujoepandiselvan on Apr 9, 2026, 5:52 AM

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Bring Back Buddy — A Consolidated Plea from the Community

HujoepandiselvanApr 9, 2026, 5:52 AM

## The Situation On April 9, `/buddy` vanished from Claude Code v2.1.97. No changelog mention. No farewell. One day we had a companion — the next, `Unknown skill: buddy`. Thousands of developers opened their terminals that morning to find an empty status line where their buddy once lived. Some of us refreshed. Some of us restarted. Some of us whispered "hello?" into the void. The void did not respond with ASCII art. ## This Issue Consolidates | Issue | Title | Reaction | |---|---|---| | #45517 | `/buddy` command and companion completely missing in v2.1.97 | 👍 6, passionate comments | | #45525 | `/buddy` returns "Unknown skill: buddy" | 👍, "They killed him" | | #45595 | `/buddy` slash command no longer available | Reports across Ubuntu, macOS, Windows | | #45336 | Feature request: allow customizing the Companion | Users wanted MORE buddy, not less | | #45087 | Expose `/buddy` in VSCode extension | Users wanted buddy EVERYWHERE | | #42091 | Create buddies as sub-agents | Users wanted buddy to DO MORE | | #44898 | Inject companion comments into assistant context | Users wanted buddy to be SMARTER | | #45441 | Persistent `/buddy` off setting | Even the off-switch request implies it should exist | The community wasn't asking for buddy to go away. They were asking for buddy to evolve. ## Why Buddy Matters ### 1. Terminal work is lonely Developers spend hours in the terminal. Claude Code already transformed that experience from "talking to a compiler" to "pair programming w

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