Salt "friend-2026-401" not found in Claude Code 2.1.x

[MagnusPladsen]

Description

Running any-buddy fails with a salt not found error. The binary doesn't contain the expected salt string.

Error output

Error: Salt "friend-2026-401" not found in /usr/local/lib/node_modules/@anthropic-ai/claude-code/cli.js.
Possible reasons:
- Binary was patched by another tool
- This binary format doesn't contain the salt as a plain string
- Claude Code changed the salt in a new version

Environment

Detail	Value
Platform	macOS 26.3.1 (darwin arm64)
Node	v22.14.0
npm	10.9.2
Claude Code	2.1.92
Binary path	/usr/local/lib/node_modules/@anthropic-ai/claude-code/cli.js

Steps to reproduce

1. Install Claude Code globally via npm
2. Run any-buddy
3. Salt lookup fails

Notes

Fresh run, no prior patching. The salt format friend-2026-401 may have changed or been removed in recent Claude Code versions.

[MagnusPladsen]

Found the issue — I had an older version of the Claude CLI installed via npm alongside the newest version installed via Brew. The tool was auto-targeting the old npm version instead of the latest Brew-installed CLI. Uninstalling the old npm version resolved the problem and everything works now.

[MagnusPladsen]

Opened a fix PR: #36

The root cause is that which claude returns whichever binary is first in PATH — often an older npm-installed version. The fix:

1. Prefers native installs (Brew, local) over npm-managed ones
2. Prompts users to select when multiple supported binaries are found
3. Shows version info and marks unsupported (too old) binaries as unselectable