claude-i

Like claude -p, but driven through an interactive Claude Code session.

The interactive claude CLI loads everything (hooks, MCPs, skills, plugins); claude -p is headless and skips a lot of it. claude-i bridges the two: it scripts an interactive session inside a headless tmux, captures the final assistant message via a gated Stop hook, and tears down the process tree on exit.

Status

v0.2.4 — production-ready for both interactive use and non-interactive automation. This release includes the v0.2.3 long-prompt / @agent / slash-skill fixes, late Stop-hook artifact cleanup, clearer Bug 5 retry guidance, and Node 24-ready CI/release infrastructure.

Install

Native Windows is not supported; use WSL2. The claude-i CLI emits PLATFORM_ERROR=3 on sys.platform == "win32" (G9 platform guard, STORY-001.2).

Option 1 — PyPI (recommended)

pipx install claude-i
# or: uv tool install claude-i

Option 2 — Homebrew (macOS / Linux)

brew tap rafaelscosta/claude-i
brew install claude-i

Option 3 — pipx + GitHub Release

pipx install https://github.com/rafaelscosta/claude-i/releases/download/v0.2.4/claude_i-0.2.4-py3-none-any.whl

Option 4 — pipx + git tag

pipx install git+https://github.com/rafaelscosta/claude-i.git@v0.2.4

Option 5 — sdist (uv-compatible)

pipx install https://github.com/rafaelscosta/claude-i/releases/download/v0.2.4/claude_i-0.2.4.tar.gz
# or: uv tool install https://github.com/rafaelscosta/claude-i/releases/download/v0.2.4/claude_i-0.2.4.tar.gz

Verify

claude-i --version    # → claude-i 0.2.4
claude-i doctor       # self-diagnostic — should report 5/5 PASS

Artifact checksums

Checksums are published with the GitHub Release assets. For local verification:

shasum -a 256 claude_i-0.2.4-py3-none-any.whl claude_i-0.2.4.tar.gz

Usage

Interactive (single-shot)

claude-i "What is 2+2?"
# → 4

Non-interactive automation / CI / scripts

Use --retries N to absorb the upstream Anthropic-side burst-load session hang (Bug 5 in NOTES.md):

claude-i --retries 3 "<prompt>"

The runner spawns a fresh tmux session on each retry. Recommended:

If the final stderr contains No Stop hook signal, the CLI now classifies it as the documented Bug 5 environmental/upstream hang and suggests the retry level above. Run claude-i doctor first; if doctor is green, treat the timeout as host/upstream saturation rather than a payload parsing regression.

Script-friendly first run

On the very first invocation, claude-i prompts to install its Stop hook. In a non-TTY context (CI, redirected stdin) this would normally fail with EOFError. Opt into auto-install:

export CLAUDE_I_AUTO_INSTALL_HOOK=1
claude-i --retries 3 "<prompt>"

JSON output

claude-i --output-format json --retries 3 "<prompt>"
# → {"text": "...", "cost_usd": null, "tokens_in": null, "tokens_out": null, "duration_ms": 4231}

Subcommands

claude-i doctor                  # self-diagnostic (5 checks; --json for machine-readable)
claude-i uninstall               # remove the Stop hook from settings.json
claude-i reap                    # kill orphaned claude-i-* tmux sessions

Exit codes

Distribution Status

v0.2.4 (2026-06-10) is the current public release. v0.2.3 fixed long prompts, agent/slash-skill invocation, and title/SKIP misattribution; v0.2.4 adds the final PyPI release hygiene and environmental hardening.

The install.sh script lives at the repo root and supports --local <path> mode using artifacts downloaded from a GitHub Release. See docs/guides/homebrew-tap.md for detailed bootstrap docs.

Origin

Forked from gist isingh/62bdfd0886b0b72bf6231c44f0389ecc. Original single-file script preserved in seed/claude-i for traceability.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.