codecash — get paid for waiting

codecash shows one tasteful sponsored ad in the wait states of your AI coding agent — the Claude Code spinner verb and status line — and pays you a revenue share for it. No pop-ups, no tracking of your code, no second ad anywhere.

This repository is the open client — the exact code that runs on your machine, reads and writes your ~/.claude/settings.json, and renders the ad. We publish it so you can audit what touches your editor. It talks to the hosted codecash service over HTTPS (see codecash.apiBaseUrl); the server-side ad auction, ledger, and payouts live in a separate repository and are not part of this package.

Install & connect (two steps)

Install the extension — from the VS Code Marketplace, from Open VSX (Cursor / Windsurf / VSCodium), or straight from your terminal:
```
code --install-extension codecash.codecash      # or: cursor / windsurf --install-extension …
```
A Get paid for waiting walkthrough opens automatically once it's installed.
Connect it — click codecash in the status bar (bottom-right), or click Connect & start earning in the walkthrough. Your browser opens, you sign in, and the editor is linked and turned on automatically — no copy-paste, no command palette.

That's it. The codecash status-bar item shows today's earnings; the next time your agent "thinks", the spinner shows the ad.

Changed your mind? codecash: Disable ad injection restores your original settings exactly.

How it works

The spinner verb is the ad. codecash sets spinnerVerbs in ~/.claude/settings.json so Claude Code renders the current ad as its "thinking" verb, and points statusLine at a small render-only script that prints the ad as a clickable terminal link.
Your settings are safe. The original ~/.claude/settings.json is backed up before any edit and restored exactly on disable/sign-out. Any pre-existing status line is preserved (stacked below the ad), every edit is reversible, and the render script never throws into your CLI.
You're paid for attention, not noise. An ad only credits your account after it has been visibly on screen long enough — accrued view time, not a fire-and-forget impression.

Commands

Command	What it does
codecash: Connect & start earning	Link this editor and turn ads on (the one-click path).
codecash: Enable / Disable ad injection	Turn the ad on or off; disable restores your settings.
codecash: Sign in with a token (paste)	Manual fallback if the browser handoff can't round-trip.
codecash: Show earnings	Today's earnings and current state.
codecash: Sign out	Disconnect this editor and restore settings.

Settings

codecash.apiBaseUrl — the codecash server this extension talks to. Leave blank to use the build default. Self-hosting or pointing at a staging server? Set it here (takes effect on the next ad fetch).

Privacy

codecash never reads or transmits your code. It fetches an ad, renders it, and reports anonymous view/credit events tied to a per-editor device token. See the project for details.

Build from source

Requires Node 22 (.nvmrc) and pnpm.

pnpm install        # install deps
pnpm build          # bundle the host + render script with esbuild → dist/
pnpm test           # run the unit tests (vitest)
pnpm typecheck      # tsc --noEmit
pnpm run package    # build a .vsix you can install locally

Point the build at a server with CODECASH_DEFAULT_API_BASE_URL=https://… pnpm build, or set codecash.apiBaseUrl at runtime.

vendor/shared/ holds a small, vendored copy of the project's shared constants, zod schemas, and pricing helpers (the non-secret subset). The source imports it as @codecash/shared, aliased to vendor/shared/ in esbuild.mjs, tsconfig.json, and vitest.config.ts.

📜 License

Proprietary and source-available — not open source. © 2026 codecash. All rights reserved. You may read this code; you may not use, copy, modify, distribute, or commercialize it without a written license. See LICENSE.txt. Commercial inquiries: vittorio@justskim.ai.