VibesCC — Branded Claude Code

VibesCC recolors Claude Code's crab mascot and spinner verbs to match your company or vibe. A PTY wrapper intercepts the ANSI output and swaps color bytes before they hit your terminal — pixel-perfect to the original, just different paint. No binary patching. Survives Claude Code updates.

yc           →  orange crab        stripe      →  purple crab
vercel       →  black crab         supabase    →  green crab
looksmaxxing →  gray crab, red eyes

Installation

Requirements: Python 3.6+, Claude Code in PATH, macOS or Linux

One-Line Install

bunx vibescc

Manual Install

git clone https://github.com/djessicatony/vibescc.git
cd vibescc
./install.sh

Press y to proceed. Open a new terminal tab, done.

To uninstall: bunx vibescc uninstall or ./uninstall.sh

Usage

Each brand pack registers a shell alias that launches Claude Code with a recolored crab:

yc                                    # orange crab
stripe                                # purple crab
supabase                              # green crab
vercel                                # black crab
looksmaxxing                          # gray crab, red eyes

All Claude Code flags work as normal:

yc --resume
stripe --dangerously-skip-permissions
yc --verbs looksmaxxing               # swap spinner verbs

How aliases work

The installer adds shell aliases to your ~/.zshrc (or ~/.bashrc). Each alias points to the PTY wrapper with a specific brand pack:

alias yc='python3 ~/.vibes/scripts/vibescc-launch.py --config ~/.vibes/packs/yc'

To add a custom alias manually:

# Add to ~/.zshrc
alias mycompany='python3 ~/.vibes/scripts/vibescc-launch.py --config ~/.vibes/packs/mycompany'

Then source ~/.zshrc or open a new tab. Now mycompany launches Claude Code with your brand colors.

Mixing Crab Colors and Verbs

Crab colors and spinner verbs are independent. The crab comes from the alias you launch with. Verbs persist in ~/.claude/settings.json until you explicitly change them.

| What you want | How to do it | |---------------|-------------| | Custom crab, default verbs | yc (just the alias, no --verbs) | | Custom crab, custom verbs | yc --verbs looksmaxxing (set once, sticks) | | Default crab, custom verbs | Set verbs with --verbs, then run claude directly | | Add verbs to Claude's defaults | Set "mode": "append" in ~/.claude/settings.json |

How It Works

Claude Code renders its crab mascot ("Clawd") using Unicode quadrant block characters with ANSI color codes. VibesCC spawns claude inside a pseudoterminal and does byte-level find-and-replace on the output stream:

You see branded crab ← replace colors ← PTY master ← PTY slave ← claude

| What gets replaced | Original | Your brand color | |---|---|---| | Crab body, border, spinner | rgb(215,119,87) | Pack body color | | Crab eyes | rgb(0,0,0) | Pack eye color | | Shimmer animation | rgb(245,149,117) | Body + 30 brightness | | Alt theme border | rgb(255,153,51) | Pack body color |

The crab itself is 8 characters wide, 3 rows tall, with 4 animation poses:

 ▐▛███▜▌     ← head + arms
▝▜█████▛▘    ← body
  ▘▘ ▝▝      ← legs

Claude has no idea it's being intercepted. The border, thinking spinner, and all branded UI elements get recolored too because they share the same color tokens.

Brand Packs

Each pack is a directory under packs/ with a pack.json:

{
  "name": "Y Combinator",
  "slug": "yc",
  "colors": { "body": "#FB651E", "eyes": "#FFFFFF" },
  "verbs": ["Demo day prepping", "Fundraising", "Shipping fast"]
}

Included Packs

| Pack | Body | Eyes | Crab | |------|------|------|------| | yc | #FB651E | #FFFFFF | Orange body, white eyes | | stripe | #635BFF | #FFFFFF | Purple body, white eyes | | vercel | #000000 | #FFFFFF | Black body, white eyes | | supabase | #3ECF8E | #FAFAFA | Green body, white eyes | | looksmaxxing | #4E4E4E | #FF0004 | Gray body, red eyes |

Create Your Own

mkdir packs/mycompany
cat > packs/mycompany/pack.json << 'EOF'
{
  "name": "My Company",
  "slug": "mycompany",
  "colors": { "body": "#FF0000", "eyes": "#FFFFFF" },
  "verbs": ["Shipping", "Building", "Deploying"]
}
EOF

Re-run bunx vibescc or ./install.sh to register the alias.

Project Structure

vibescc/
  scripts/
    vibescc-launch.py       # PTY wrapper — the entire product
    banner.py               # Gradient block-letter renderer for installer
    yc-claude               # Convenience launcher for YC
  packs/
    yc/pack.json            # Colors + verbs per brand
    stripe/pack.json
    vercel/pack.json
    supabase/pack.json
    looksmaxxing/pack.json
  bin/
    vibes.mjs               # npx/bunx installer entry point
  commands/                  # Claude Code plugin commands (optional)
    install.md               # /vibescc:install
    uninstall.md             # /vibescc:uninstall
    list.md                  # /vibescc:list
  install.sh                 # Git clone installer
  uninstall.sh               # Removes aliases and verbs

Limitations

• Crab colors are per-tab, verbs are global — you can have different crabs in different tabs, but verbs are shared across all sessions via ~/.claude/settings.json
• Colors only — can't change the crab's shape or add logos to it
• RGB themes only — if Claude Code falls back to ANSI-16 colors (rare on modern terminals), the color codes differ and won't be matched
• Verb color = crab color — the spinner text, border, and crab all share the same color token, so they all change together

License

MIT