Coding Session Todos
A VS Code sidebar that mirrors the live TodoWrite task list from your active
Claude Code sessions — so you can
watch the plan unfold without keeping the terminal in focus.
It works entirely by tailing the transcript JSONL files Claude Code writes under
~/.claude/projects/. Nothing is sent anywhere; there are no runtime
dependencies and no configuration required to get started.
Claude Code only, for now. Despite the agent-agnostic name, the extension
currently reads Claude Code
transcripts exclusively. Support for other coding agents may come later.
Features
- Live todo list — the current
TodoWrite snapshot for each active session,
re-rendered as the transcript changes. The in-progress item is highlighted.
- Running subagents — when a session spawns subagents (via the Agent/Task
tool), they appear under a collapsible Subagents · N running group beneath
the session, each with its task, a live activity line (agent type, last tool,
turns, age), and its own todos on the rare occasion it has them. Rows clear as
the subagents finish.
- Every window, one place — sessions are read globally from
~/.claude/projects/, so a single panel shows every Claude Code session active
across all your open VS Code windows and workspaces — not just this one —
sorted most-recent-first, each with its own todos.
- Session state at a glance — a spinner while Claude is working, a warning
when a session looks like it's waiting on you (e.g. a permission prompt), and a
check when it's idle.
- Context usage — the percentage of the model's context window consumed,
shown per session and in the status bar (matches Claude Code's
/context).
- Status-bar widget — a compact
current/total · NN% readout for the session
running in your current workspace, with a tooltip listing every active session.
Requirements
Claude Code installed and used at
least once, so transcripts exist under ~/.claude/projects/. The extension reads
those files read-only; it does not run or control Claude Code.
Installation
From the VS Code Marketplace: search for Coding Session Todos in the Extensions view,
or install from the command line:
code --install-extension abslabs.coding-session-todos
Or build and install a local .vsix:
npm install
npm run package # produces coding-session-todos-<version>.vsix
code --install-extension coding-session-todos-<version>.vsix
Settings
| Setting |
Default |
Description |
codingSessionTodos.activeSessionMinutes |
300 |
How recently a session must have been touched (in minutes) to appear in the panel. Default 300 (5 hours). Min 5, max 1440 (1 day). |
How it works
- Lists every transcript under
~/.claude/projects/ whose modification time is
within the active window, and reads only the trailing ~1 MB of each (transcripts
routinely exceed 20 MB).
- Scans that tail backward for the latest
TodoWrite tool call and renders
input.todos, plus the session's title, inferred state, and context usage.
- Reads any subagents a session spawned from the
<sessionId>/subagents/ sidecar
transcripts Claude Code writes, and shows the ones still running.
- The workspace folder is matched against the
cwd recorded inside each
transcript, not guessed from the folder name (Claude Code's encoding has shifted
across versions).
- Re-reads on file changes (debounced) and re-scans when sessions start, stop, or
age out.
Privacy
Everything stays local. The extension only reads transcript files already on your
machine and makes no network requests.
Development
npm install # also wires up the pre-commit hook (typecheck + test)
npm run build # compile to out/
npm test # vitest
Press F5 in VS Code to launch an Extension Development Host with the extension
loaded. See AGENTS.md for architecture notes.
License
MIT
