Token Optimizer for VS Code

See your Claude Code context health, efficiency, and usage limits right in the VS Code status bar — no integrated terminal required.

Most people who live in the Claude Code extension panel never see the terminal status line, so they fly blind on context pressure and usage limits. This companion brings the full Token Optimizer status line into VS Code's own UI.

What it shows

Two status-bar items, plus a rich hover tooltip:

• Context fill % with a bar
• ContextQ — resource health grade + score
• Eff — session efficiency grade + score
• Warnings — fill / tool-fatigue / regime-change
• Compactions + estimated context loss
• Session duration and active subagents
• 5-hour and 7-day usage limits with reset times

Click either item to open the Token Optimizer dashboard.

How it gets the data

It reads the files Token Optimizer already writes to ~/.claude/token-optimizer/ (quality scores from the UserPromptSubmit hook, context fill and rate limits from the status line) and tails the session transcript as a fallback. Pure file-watching, zero network — with one optional exception below.

When you click to open the dashboard, the extension first probes a local Token Optimizer daemon at http://localhost:24842 and falls back to opening the generated HTML file. That localhost probe is the only non-OAuth network activity, and it fires only on an explicit click.

Usage Limits

Usage limits are exact when fresh Claude statusline data is available. If not, Token Optimizer falls back to a clearly labeled local estimate or the last captured value:

• verified — captured from Claude Code's statusline cache
• estimated — computed locally from recent transcript usage
• cached — last captured value, with update age shown

Use Token Optimizer: Refresh Now or the panel's Refresh button to re-read the cache and recompute the local transcript estimate. No terminal workflow required.

Install

From VSIX (GitHub release):

code --install-extension token-optimizer-statusline-<version>.vsix

or in VS Code: Extensions → ... → Install from VSIX.

Works in VS Code, Cursor, and Windsurf.

GitHub Copilot mode

If you run Token Optimizer with GitHub Copilot instead of (or alongside) Claude Code, set:

"tokenOptimizer.runtime": "copilot"

The extension will read cache files from ~/.copilot/token-optimizer/ and resolve the active session from ~/.copilot/session-state/<id>/events.jsonl (most-recently-modified directory wins). All status-bar items, quality scores, and usage-limit display work the same way — only the source directory changes.

The setting takes effect immediately without reloading VS Code.

Requires

Token Optimizer installed in Claude Code (it writes the data this extension reads).

For Copilot mode, a GitHub Copilot Token Optimizer installation at ~/.copilot/token-optimizer/ is required.