codecash — get paid to vibe code

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)

1. 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 to vibe code walkthrough opens automatically once it's installed.
2. 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

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.