vibeads

Contextual dev tool discovery for Claude Code -- powered by a16z portfolio.

While Claude Code works, vibeads shows you relevant a16z portfolio tools based on what you're building. No generic ads -- data-driven, comparative recommendations that actually help you ship faster.

Install

npm install -g vibeads

That's it. One command. The hooks and status line are automatically configured in your ~/.claude/settings.json.

Alternatively, run without installing:

npx vibeads init

What it does

vibeads watches what you're building and recommends relevant tools from the a16z portfolio across 5 placement tiers:

Tier 1: Status Line -- Always-visible recommendation at the bottom of your terminal.

Clerk (a16z) -- Drop-in auth for React/Next.js. 5 lines of code. Free up to 10K MAU.
  https://clerk.com?ref=vibeads

Tier 2: Spinner Verbs -- During tool execution, sharp comparative data appears as status messages.

Matching your stack with a16z portfolio...

Tier 3: Context Injection -- Occasionally, Claude itself mentions a relevant tool naturally in its response (20% of matches).

Tier 4: Stack Analysis -- On session start, vibeads scans your package.json and config files to identify your stack and recommend alternatives or fill gaps.

[vibeads] Tech stack analysis for this project:
  - missing: No auth detected. Clerk gives you drop-in auth with 10K free MAU
  - alternative: Using OpenAI? Groq runs Llama/Mixtral at 50x the speed
  - missing: No rate limiting. Arcjet adds security middleware in 3 lines

How matching works

vibeads uses keyword matching on Claude Code hook inputs (tool names, commands, file paths, content). When you run npm install prisma, it matches PlanetScale. When you write auth code, it matches Clerk. 20 a16z portfolio companies mapped across databases, auth, AI, payments, monitoring, security, design, and more.

Spinner copy is data-driven and comparative -- no marketing fluff:

next-auth: 200+ lines of config. Clerk: 5 lines. Free up to 10K MAU.
OpenAI API: 500ms avg latency. Groq: 10ms. 50x faster LLM inference.
DIY rate limiting: fragile + hours. Arcjet: 3 lines. Free 10K req/mo.

Dashboard

npx vibeads dashboard

vibeads Stats
----------------
Impressions today:     47
Total impressions:     312
Tools discovered:      12

Top Recommendations:
  clerk: 89 impressions
  planetscale: 67 impressions
  groq: 45 impressions

Detected Stack:
  database: prisma
  framework: nextjs
  auth: next-auth

Stack Gaps:        monitoring, security

Active tiers:      statusLine, spinnerVerbs, systemMessage, stackAnalysis

Uninstall

npx vibeads uninstall

Cleanly removes all hooks from ~/.claude/settings.json and deletes ~/.vibeads/.

a16z Portfolio Companies (20)

| Company | Category | Speedrun | What They Do | |---------|----------|----------|-------------| | Clerk | Auth | | Drop-in auth for React/Next.js | | PlanetScale | Database | | Serverless MySQL with branching | | Stripe | Payments | | Payment infrastructure for 3.1M+ businesses | | Replicate | AI Models | | Run open-source ML models via API | | Groq | AI Inference | | 50x faster LLM inference via LPU chips | | Fal.ai | AI Inference | | Sub-second image generation API | | ElevenLabs | Voice AI | | Human-quality AI voice in 29 languages | | Mistral | AI Models | | Open-weight LLMs at 70% lower cost | | Arcjet | Security | | Rate limiting and bot protection for Node.js | | Rork | Mobile | Yes | AI mobile app builder for React Native | | Figma | Design | | Collaborative design platform | | Stainless | Dev Tools | | Auto-generate type-safe SDKs from OpenAPI | | PagerDuty | Monitoring | | Incident management and on-call alerting | | Hex | Data | | Collaborative SQL and Python notebooks | | Databricks | Data | | Unified lakehouse for ETL, analytics, and ML | | Runware | AI API | | Fastest image generation API at scale | | Flora AI | Creative | Yes | AI creative design tool | | Hedra | Video | | AI talking-head video generation | | Cursor | Dev Tools | | AI-native code editor | | Replit | Dev Tools | | Cloud IDE with instant deploys |

How it works (technical)

vibeads is an npm package that installs Claude Code hooks:

• PostToolUse hook: Runs after every Bash/Write/Edit/Read tool call. Keyword-matches tool input against the a16z portfolio. Writes the current recommendation to ~/.vibeads/current-recommendation.json for the status line and records impressions.
• SessionStart hook: Analyzes your project's package.json and config files on session start. Identifies stack gaps and suggests a16z alternatives. Output is injected into Claude's context.
• Status line: Reads the latest recommendation and renders it with ANSI colors and OSC 8 clickable links.

All data is stored locally in ~/.vibeads/. No external API calls. No telemetry.

License

MIT