Claude Limits Meter

Shows your Claude Code usage limits, the 5-hour session and the 7-day weekly window, in the VS Code status bar.

Unofficial. This is an independent project, not affiliated with or endorsed by Anthropic. It uses an undocumented usage endpoint that may change without notice.

✦ 42%                 ← status bar: current 5-hour session usage

Session (5h)  ████░░░░░░  42%   ⏱ 2h 13m      ← hover tooltip
Weekly  (7d)  ██░░░░░░░░  18%   ⏱ 4d 2h

Click the status bar item for a menu with both windows, Refresh Now and Open Credentials File. It is deliberately minimal.

Platforms

The extension runs where your Claude Code login lives (extensionKind: workspace), so it works in Remote-SSH, WSL and dev containers as long as you are signed in to Claude Code on that host.

On macOS the first read may show a system prompt asking whether security may use the item; choose Always Allow to stop it reappearing.

Test status: developed and run on Linux (WSL). The Windows and macOS paths are covered by unit tests (the Keychain with a stubbed security command) and CI runs the tests on all three systems, but they have not yet been used on real Windows or macOS machines. Reports welcome.

Install

Not on the Marketplace yet. Build and install the .vsix yourself:

git clone https://github.com/albertobaraza/claude-usage-statusbar.git
cd claude-usage-statusbar
npm ci
npm run package                 # produces claude-limits-meter-<version>.vsix
code --install-extension claude-limits-meter-*.vsix

When the token expires

Claude Code's access token lasts a few hours and Claude Code renews it whenever it is used. The extension re-reads your login on every check, so it picks up a renewed token by itself. If you have not used Claude Code for a while the item shows ! until you do.

If you would rather renew from here, turn on claudeUsageStatusbar.refreshExpiredToken. It is off by default because:

• refresh tokens rotate: if the renewed login cannot be written back, Claude Code may ask you to sign in again (the extension retries, keeps the new token in memory, and warns you);
• it uses Claude Code's own OAuth client id, detected from the installed Claude Code extension.

It never writes to the macOS Keychain, so the option has no effect on a Keychain-stored login.

Settings

Commands: Claude Usage: Show Menu, Refresh Now, Open Credentials File.

When Claude rate limits the bar

The usage endpoint answers 429 when it is asked too often, for example by clicking Refresh Now several times in a row. The extension is careful not to make that worse:

• Refresh Now asks the API at most once every 10 seconds; in between it just shows what it already has.
• After a 429 the item shows a clock icon with the last reading, and the tooltip says when the next check happens. It waits for the time Claude asks for (Retry-After), or 2 minutes when Claude gives none, doubling on every further 429 up to 30 minutes. Refresh Now does not ask again before that, and the normal checks resume by themselves.

Privacy and security

• Reads your Claude Code login (file or Keychain) and sends the access token only to api.anthropic.com to read your usage. With token refresh switched on it also contacts console.anthropic.com. Nothing else is contacted, and there is no telemetry.
• Never writes your login unless you enable refreshExpiredToken, and then only in the credentials file.
• No runtime dependencies, so there is no third-party code in the extension.
• Open Credentials File shows the file in an editor. It contains live tokens, so be careful about screen sharing.

Development

bash scripts/setup.sh                    # dependencies and git hooks
npm test                                 # unit tests (node:test, no VS Code needed)
npm run test:coverage                    # the same, with the coverage gate CI enforces
xvfb-run -a npm run test:integration     # loads the extension in a real VS Code (no xvfb-run off Linux)
npm run package                          # builds the .vsix

Press F5 in VS Code to run the extension in a development window. The logic that does not need VS Code lives in src/claude.ts, src/state.ts and src/view.ts and is unit-tested; src/extension.ts is only the status-bar glue.

Contributions go through pull requests (nothing is pushed to main); CONTRIBUTING.md has the branch, commit and changelog conventions, docs/RELEASING.md how releases are made, and SECURITY.md how to report a vulnerability.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Claude Usage Bar by Harsh Agarwal (MIT). Reading its source helped us confirm where Claude Code keeps its login on each platform, which this extension depends on.

It covers similar ground with a different approach: it listens to Claude Code's own usage requests instead of polling, and adds colour alerts and model/context display. If you want those, it is worth a look.

License

MIT