diff --git a/src/move.ts b/src/move.ts
index 39ef3fd..d9800a0 100755
--- a/src/move.ts
+++ b/src/move.ts
@@ -12,13 +12,17 @@
  *
  * Order of operations:
  *   1. Parse CLI args. Bad input -> stderr + usage hint, exit 2.
- *   2. `--help` / `--version` short-circuit before any I/O or mouse work.
+ *   2. `--help` / `--version` short-circuit before any I/O, config load, or
+ *      mouse work.  `keeper.ts` is also lazy-imported (see below) so these
+ *      flags don't pay the cost of loading the nut.js native binary.
  *   3. Load + validate the config file (default XDG path, or `--config
  *      <path>` if supplied). Validation failures share the exit-2 path.
  *   4. Resolve the full `Config` (CLI > file > DEFAULT_CONFIG) — verbose
  *      lives inside `Config` and is layered with the same precedence as
  *      the numeric fields.
- *   5. Run keeper. Any unhandled rejection exits 1.
+ *   5. Lazy-import `keeper.ts` (dynamic import keeps nut.js out of the
+ *      `--help` / `--version` startup path) and run it. Any unhandled
+ *      rejection — from the import itself or from the loop — exits 1.
  *
  * Runtime: Bun (uses `@nut-tree-fork/nut-js` via `keeper.ts`). The shebang
  * above lets this file run as a real CLI once linked via `bun link`.
@@ -29,7 +33,13 @@ import type { ParsedCliArgs } from "./cli.ts";
 import { resolveConfig } from "./config.ts";
 import type { ConfigOverrides } from "./config.ts";
 import { loadConfigFile } from "./configFile.ts";
-import { runKeeper } from "./keeper.ts";
+
+// `keeper.ts` is intentionally NOT statically imported here. It transitively
+// pulls in `@nut-tree-fork/nut-js`, which in turn dlopens a sizeable native
+// `.node` binary. On a cold first run that load dominates startup (~1 s on
+// macOS). For `--help` and `--version` we never actually need nut.js, so we
+// defer the import to the only branch that actually runs the keeper loop.
+// See the dynamic `await import("./keeper.ts")` near the bottom of the file.
 
 /**
  * Print a user-error message and exit 2. Used for anything that comes from
@@ -98,4 +108,14 @@ const cliOverrides: ConfigOverrides = {
 
 const config = resolveConfig(fileOverrides, cliOverrides);
 
-runKeeper(config).catch(failRuntime);
+// Dynamic import so nut.js and the rest of the keeper machinery aren't
+// loaded for invocations that exit early (--help, --version, validation
+// failures). The `try` covers import-time failures too (e.g., a missing
+// nut.js native binary), routing them through the same runtime-failure
+// path as anything raised by the loop itself.
+try {
+    const { runKeeper } = await import("./keeper.ts");
+    runKeeper(config).catch(failRuntime);
+} catch (err: unknown) {
+    failRuntime(err);
+}