Claude Toolbar

A VS Code extension that adds status bar items for managing Claude Code: a model and account picker, a permission mode toggle, live token usage display, and a background task monitor. Also adds a button to the Source Control panel that generates commit messages with Claude.

Feature	Sign-in required
Model switcher	No
Account switcher	Handles sign-ins itself
Background tasks	No
Permission toggle	No
Usage bar	Yes (`claude auth login`)
Commit message generator	Yes (`claude auth login`)

The usage bar and commit message generator read your Claude OAuth token from the macOS Keychain, or from ~/.claude/.credentials.json on Windows and Linux.

Status Bar Items

All items appear in the bottom-left status bar, just to the right of the Problems indicator.

Item	Id	Description
Model picker	`model`	Current model — click to switch models or accounts
Permission toggle	`permissions`	Current permission mode — click to toggle
Session usage	`sessionUsage`	5-hour session usage and time until reset
Weekly usage	`weeklyUsage`	7-day usage and time until reset
Background tasks	`tasks`	Count of Claude background agents/processes — click to view or kill

Usage percentages are color-coded: green below 60%, yellow 60–80%, red 80%+. The session and weekly items only appear when on the Default (Claude) model and usage data is available.

Hiding and Reordering Items

Use claudeSwitcher.statusBarItems to control which items are shown and in what order. The array lists item ids left to right; remove an entry to hide that item. For example, to hide the permission toggle and move usage in front of the model picker:

"claudeSwitcher.statusBarItems": ["sessionUsage", "weeklyUsage", "model", "tasks"]

Changes apply immediately — no reload needed. Hidden items' commands remain available from the Command Palette.

Installation

Install Claude Toolbar directly from the VS Code Marketplace.

To build and install from source instead, clone this repository, then from its root:

If code isn't on your PATH, add it first: open VS Code, press Cmd+Shift+P, and run Shell Command: Install 'code' command in PATH.

npx @vscode/vsce package
code --install-extension claude-toolbar-1.0.0.vsix

Then reload VS Code.

Configuration

Add providers to your settings.json:

"claudeSwitcher.models": [
  {
    "baseUrl": "http://localhost:1234",
    "authToken": "lmstudio",
    "models": [
      { "model": "qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b", "name": "Qwen 3.6 (Local)" }
    ]
  }
]

Multiple providers and multiple models per provider are supported. Each model appears as its own entry in the picker.

Field	Description
`baseUrl`	Sets `ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL`
`authToken`	Sets `ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN`
`models[].model`	Sets `ANTHROPIC_MODEL`
`models[].name`	Label shown in the picker

Model Switcher

Click the model item and choose a model. Select Default (Claude) to clear all overrides and use the Anthropic API directly. The current model is derived from claudeCode.environmentVariables so it always reflects the actual active setting.

Account Switcher

Switch between two or more signed-in Claude accounts from the same picker as the model switcher. Add named accounts to settings.json:

"claudeSwitcher.accounts": ["personal", "work"]

List the account you are currently signed in to first — on first use, the current sign-in is saved under the first name in the list.

How it works:

Picking an account you haven't signed in to yet clears the live Claude Code credential, so Claude Code presents its sign-in flow (run /login in the Claude panel if it doesn't prompt). Once signed in, that account is captured automatically.
Picking an account you've signed in to before restores its saved credentials instantly. The account you're leaving is snapshotted first, so you can switch back and forth freely.
The extension host restarts after each switch so Claude Code picks up the new credential.

Security: account names in settings.json are just labels. The credentials themselves are stored via VS Code SecretStorage, which is encrypted by your OS keychain — they are never written to settings.json or any plain-text file. The live credential lives wherever Claude Code itself keeps it (macOS Keychain, or ~/.claude/.credentials.json on Windows/Linux).

Background Tasks

A $(server-process) N status bar item shows how many Claude background tasks are running, polled every 5 seconds. This counts:

Background Claude agents — claude CLI processes spawned by another Claude process or detached from any session, which you can't stop from the Claude Code panel
Processes started by Claude — shells, dev servers, watchers, and other descendants of any running Claude process

Click the item to see the list grouped by kind, multi-select entries, and kill them (SIGTERM on macOS/Linux, taskkill /T /F on Windows).

Permission Toggle

Click the shield/warning icon to toggle between two modes:

Icon	Mode	Effect
`$(shield)`	Default	Standard Claude Code permission prompts
`$(warning)`	Bypass	Sets `claudeCode.allowDangerouslySkipPermissions: true` — skips all prompts

The icon reflects the live value of claudeCode.allowDangerouslySkipPermissions in your settings.

Usage Bar

When on the Default model, two items show Claude Code token usage pulled from the Anthropic OAuth API:

Session — percentage of the 5-hour rolling limit used, plus time until it resets (3h 12m)
Weekly — percentage of the 7-day rolling limit used, plus time until it resets — days and hours (2d 5h), or hours and minutes (7h 32m) on the last day

Data refreshes whenever the CLI updates the data file and on a 3-minute poll interval. Both items hide automatically when no data is available.

Commit Message Generator

A sparkle button appears in the Source Control panel title bar. Click it to generate a conventional commit message for your currently staged changes using Claude Haiku. Stage your changes first (git add), then click — the message is written directly into the commit input box.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.

bryantmh