Credit Pulse

A local-first Codex usage dashboard for VS Code, with an optional always-on-top Windows robot. Independent community software; not affiliated with OpenAI.

Quick Start

1. Install the extension and sign in through Codex. Trust your workspace before using Credit Pulse. It does not ask for an API key or account password.
2. Open Credit Pulse: Open Usage Console from the Command Palette, or click the S % / L % status-bar item. Hover there for a numeric usage preview.
3. The dashboard stays in VS Code. Click Desktop once to open the Windows robot above other apps; the same button becomes Hide Overlay to close it.
4. Drag the robot anywhere and release it to keep its position. Click to expand the card, drag the card's header, and use its compact button to shrink it.

There is only one desktop launcher. In-view float, dock, and duplicate bubble controls have been removed. Use VS Code's own view-header controls to place the dashboard in a sidebar or bottom panel. No second VS Code window is created.

After updating, run Developer: Reload Window once. The header should show V0.9. Reloading or closing the owning VS Code window closes its desktop robot.

What Each Section Does

• Usage: separate five-hour session and long-window quotas, reset countdowns, and configurable warnings. Temporarily missing session buckets after reset are explicitly marked as inferred rather than replaced by the long window.
• Programmer HUD: session headroom, cache reuse, average request size, chat depth, and a heuristic context-efficiency score when local history is enabled.
• Tailored Advice: recommendations based on actual quota headroom, reset times, cache ratio, request depth, and latest-versus-average token activity.
• Chats & Requests: opt-in, expandable local token analytics and search.
• Console Config: Matrix, Cyberpunk, Operator, Icecore, and Glass themes; circular color swatches, warning thresholds, glow, and reduced-motion-aware robot animations.
• Copy Stats: quota numbers and anonymous chat/request totals only.

Processed tokens are context telemetry, not billing or exact per-request quota cost. Credit balance is separate from quota. A quota reset estimate is not a guarantee of restored capacity; fresh Codex readings take precedence.

Privacy By Default

History reading is off by default. Analyze Local History opts into local session-log analytics across workspaces. Prompt excerpts are separately off by default; Reveal Prompt Excerpts enables them only in the dashboard. Common credential patterns are masked, but sensitive text detection is not complete.

Desktop, hover preview, copied stats, and their recommendations remain anonymous even when dashboard excerpts are enabled. Project paths are not shown. Disabling history clears results immediately, including outstanding reads. Search text is not persisted. Existing explicit history preferences are respected on upgrade.

The extension has no analytics endpoint. Codex performs its own authentication and quota requests. The desktop companion uses private process pipes, not a network server. See Privacy and Security for details and limitations.

Requirements And Limits

• VS Code 1.95 or newer and a locally installed, signed-in Codex executable.
• Windows desktop overlay requires .NET Framework/WPF. Windows x64 is tested; the dashboard is retained on other systems, but those systems are not yet part of this release's tested platform matrix.
• Desktop uses normal Windows topmost behavior, not secure-desktop or exclusive fullscreen overrides. The companion is currently unsigned.
• Local history scans are bounded and skip files over 8 MiB. Logs from earlier accounts may exist; historical fallback is labeled and never triggers alerts.
• If automatic Codex discovery fails, set Credit Pulse: Codex Path to an absolute executable path you trust. Workspace and relative PATH entries are not automatically launched.

Development

There are no third-party npm runtime dependencies. Building the companion uses the Windows .NET Framework compiler; browser tests additionally need Python, Playwright, and Edge, and native screenshot tests need Pillow.

node --test tests/*.test.js
python tests/browser_check.py
powershell.exe -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File tools/build_desktop.ps1
powershell.exe -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File tools/sign_desktop.ps1 -CertificateThumbprint YOUR_40_HEX_THUMBPRINT
python tests/desktop_check.py
python -m unittest discover -s tests -p "test_release*.py"
python tools/package_vsix.py
python tools/release_check.py
code --install-extension credit-pulse-0.9.3.vsix --force

Source maintainers: follow RELEASING.md before public publication. A local VSIX is not a Marketplace publication. License: MIT.

References: VS Code publishing, webview security, Windows topmost behavior.