claude-hud

Claude HUD

A Claude Code plugin that shows what's happening — context usage, active tools, running agents, and todo progress. Always visible below your input.

Install

Inside a Claude Code instance, run the following commands:

Step 1: Add the marketplace

/plugin marketplace add jarrodwatts/claude-hud

Step 2: Install the plugin

EXDEV: cross-device link not permitted

mkdir -p ~/.cache/tmp && TMPDIR=~/.cache/tmp claude

/plugin install claude-hud

Step 3: Configure the statusline

/claude-hud:setup

Done! The HUD appears immediately — no restart needed.

What is Claude HUD?

Claude HUD gives you better insights into what's happening in your Claude Code session.

What You See

Default (2 lines)

[Opus | Max] │ my-project git:(main*)
Context █████░░░░░ 45% │ Usage ██░░░░░░░░ 25% (1h 30m / 5h)

• Line 1 — Model, plan name (or Bedrock), project path, git branch
• Line 2 — Context bar (green → yellow → red) and usage rate limits

Optional lines (enable via /claude-hud:configure)

◐ Edit: auth.ts | ✓ Read ×3 | ✓ Grep ×2        ← Tools activity
◐ explore [haiku]: Finding auth code (2m 15s)    ← Agent status
▸ Fix authentication bug (2/5)                   ← Todo progress

How It Works

Claude HUD uses Claude Code's native statusline API — no separate window, no tmux required, works in any terminal.

Claude Code → stdin JSON → claude-hud → stdout → displayed in your terminal
           ↘ transcript JSONL (tools, agents, todos)

Key features:

• Native token data from Claude Code (not estimated)
• Scales with Claude Code's reported context window size, including newer 1M-context sessions
• Parses the transcript for tool/agent activity
• Updates every ~300ms

Configuration

Customize your HUD anytime:

/claude-hud:configure

The guided flow handles layout and display toggles. Advanced overrides such as custom colors and thresholds are preserved there, but you set them by editing the config file directly:

• First time setup: Choose a preset (Full/Essential/Minimal), then fine-tune individual elements
• Customize anytime: Toggle items on/off, adjust git display style, switch layouts
• Preview before saving: See exactly how your HUD will look before committing changes

Presets

After choosing a preset, you can turn individual elements on or off.

Manual Configuration

Edit ~/.claude/plugins/claude-hud/config.json directly for advanced settings such as colors.*, pathLevels, and threshold overrides. Running /claude-hud:configure preserves those manual settings.

Options