cctop

cctop

A keyboard-first menubar app to monitor and jump between AI coding sessions — minimum setup required.

Works with your existing editor and terminal. No IDE needed, no workflow changes — just install the app, connect your tools, and every session shows up in a floating panel you can navigate with your keyboard.

Tokyo Night (dark)	Claude (light)

Features

At-a-glance status. A floating menubar panel shows all active sessions with color-coded badges: idle, working, waiting for input, waiting for permission, compacting. See the current prompt or tool in use (e.g. "Editing auth.ts") without switching windows.

Jump directly to any session. Click a session card to raise its VS Code, Cursor, or iTerm2 window — or stay on the keyboard. Arrow keys to browse, Enter to jump, Tab to switch tabs.

Draggable panel. Drag the header to reposition the panel anywhere on screen — position persists across launches. Double-click the header to snap back to the default menubar anchor.

Navigate mode. Hit a global hotkey to overlay numbered badges (1–9) on every session card, then press the number to jump instantly.

Navigate mode — press 1–9 to jump

Recent Projects. A second tab keeps session history so you can reopen past projects easily.

Recent projects tab

Smart status icon. See session health without opening the panel:

• Status bar: A proportional bar next to the icon shows green (working), amber (needs input), red (permission pending), or gray (idle).
• Attention tint: When any session needs your input, the icon shifts to terracotta — visible even in your peripheral vision.
• Notch-aware: On MacBooks where the notch hides the menubar icon, a small status pill appears next to the camera so you always have a signal.

Supported Tools

Tool	Status	How it connects
Claude Code	Supported	Shell hooks → cctop-hook CLI
opencode	Supported	JS plugin → cctop-hook CLI
pi	Supported	TS extension → cctop-hook CLI
Codex CLI	Planned	Waiting for plugin/hook API to stabilize

Themes

Four color schemes inspired by beloved developer tools — each with dark and light variants.

Claude	Tokyo Night	Gruvbox	Nord

Switch themes in Settings > Appearance > Color.

Installation

Step 1: Install the app

Homebrew:

brew install --cask st0012/cctop/cctop

Or download the latest release — the app is signed and notarized by Apple.

Step 2: Connect your tools

Follow the app's instructions to connect your tools. The app auto-detects installed tools and offers one-click plugin installation.

Privacy

No network access. No analytics. No telemetry. All data stays on your machine.

cctop stores only:

• Session status (idle / working / waiting)
• Project directory name
• Last activity timestamp
• Current tool or prompt context

This data lives in ~/.cctop/sessions/ as plain JSON files. You can inspect it anytime:

ls ~/.cctop/sessions/
cat ~/.cctop/sessions/*.json | python3 -m json.tool

FAQ

Does cctop slow down my coding tool? No. The plugin calls a lightweight native binary (cctop-hook) on each event, which writes a small JSON file and returns immediately. There is no measurable impact on performance.