Claude Code Memory Leak Fix for Linux Homelabs

Memory Leak Details

A developer running a Proxmox homelab with 64 cores and 503GB RAM experienced repeated crashes when using Claude Code to manage VMs, GitLab, DNS, and other services. Despite upgrading to 500GB RAM, Claude Code consumed 400GB and crashed the entire system.

Memory dump analysis revealed:

• 1.15 billion identical 160-byte objects in heap
• Objects never freed (free=0)
• Growth rate of ~32,000 objects per second during active use
• Idle usage is normal

Technical Findings

The investigation uncovered:

• Claude Code is built on Bun runtime
• Uses two allocators: mimalloc + glibc malloc
• Leak is in glibc malloc side
• JavaScript-level fixes don't work due to allocator layer
• This has been an open issue for months with dozens of GitHub reports

Two-Tier Fix Solution

The developer created a Linux-only solution:

Tier 1 (10GB threshold): LD_PRELOAD shim that intercepts malloc(160) calls and caps growth. Zero overhead until threshold is reached.

Tier 2 (20GB threshold): Watchdog that restarts the session if Tier 1 isn't sufficient, acting as a safety net.

The fix is available at github.com/dalsoop/claude-code-memory-leak-fix.