Ambient budget pacing for metered, agentic AI coding tools (Claude Code and peers) — right in the status bar.
Privacy, first
Zero network code. This extension imports no networking module of any kind. There is nothing to phone home with. This is enforced automatically, not just promised: npm run lint:privacy (scripts/check-no-network.mjs) scans the source and built output for any http/https/net/dns/tls/fetch usage and fails the build if found, and runs in CI on every push (.github/workflows/vector-ai-pulse-ci.yml).
All data stays local, in a single human-readable JSON file at ~/.vector-ai-pulse/store.json. Open it, read it, delete it — it's yours.
No accounts, no telemetry, no license checks for anything in this extension.
What it does (v1)
Automatically tracks usage by reading each tool's own local session data — no manual entry needed:
Never your prompts or completions — token counts, model, timestamps, and cost only.
Tracks your daily/monthly AI spend against a budget you set.
Shows a glanceable status bar cue — green/amber/red pace state — so you know if you're on track without leaving the editor.
Click the cue to open the Pulse panel, split into two tabs:
Live/Recent — open sessions (live and idle, each session's own accent color), a rule-based recommendation, today's and this period's pace against budget, and today's activity grouped by project.
Past — a period toggle (week / last-N-days / all time) and metric toggle (cost / tokens / cache hit %) driving one trend chart and an expandable top-sessions list, plus all-time spend-by-model-over-time, by-tool, and by-model breakdowns.
A native notification nudges you once a session goes quiet long enough to count as closed, only when there's something actionable to say (capped at 3/day).
Manual entry for tools that don't expose per-token usage yet, plus CSV export for your own records.
Commands
Vector AI Pulse: Open Pulse Panel
Vector AI Pulse: Set Budget...
Vector AI Pulse: Log Manual Entry...
Vector AI Pulse: Export CSV...
Vector AI Pulse: Reset All Data
Settings
vector.aiPulse.cueStyle — standard (default), minimal, or off.
vector.aiPulse.pricing — per-million-token USD overrides by model id, merged over built-in defaults.
vector.aiPulse.trendDays — trend chart window in days (default 30, 7-180).
vector.aiPulse.activeSessionWindowMinutes — how recent a session's last activity must be to show as "active" (default 10).
vector.aiPulse.idleSessionWindowMinutes — how long past the active window a session still shows as "idle" (open but quiet) before it's treated as closed (default 60).
