Claude Master
A compact, dockable list of the Claude Code sessions running in this VS Code window, with live status. See at a glance which session is working, which one is waiting for your permission, and which have finished, then click to jump straight to it.
Claude Master is an independent, unofficial extension. It is not made, endorsed or supported by Anthropic.
Statuses
| Icon |
Status |
Meaning |
| spinning, blue |
Working |
Claude is working on a turn |
| bell, orange |
Permission / Input |
Claude is waiting for you: a permission prompt or a question |
| spinning, purple |
N agents running |
The turn is over, but background subagents are still running |
| check, green |
Idle |
Finished, waiting for your next prompt |
| slashed circle, grey |
Closed |
The session's Claude process has ended |
Each row also shows the session's permission mode (auto, plan, edits for accept-edits, ask for the default mode) and how many subagents are running, e.g. Working · auto · 2 agents · 3m. Hover a row for details.
The mode is taken from the most recent of: the mode recorded with each prompt, the mode-change entries Claude writes to the transcript, and the mode you last picked in Claude's UI. Right after a plan is approved into a mode other than auto, Claude records nothing, so the label stays blank until the next prompt.
Usage
- Click a row to switch the Claude Code sidebar view to that session, like picking it from Claude's session history. Closed sessions are resumed. For this to work, clicking sets
claudeCode.preferredLocation to sidebar, which is what Claude's own "Open in Side Bar" command does. If the session is open in its own Claude editor tab, that tab is shown instead.
- Untitled is a session with no prompt yet; only the newest one is listed. Claude Code keeps such a session without an id until its first prompt, and asking it to switch to an id it doesn't know makes it start another blank session. So clicking Untitled only shows the Claude view. If another session is showing there, pick the Untitled one in Claude's own session list.
- × on hover (or the right-click menu) removes a session from the list. It comes back as soon as anything new happens in it: a prompt, a reply, a slash command, a finished agent. Closing or resuming a session (e.g. reloading the window) doesn't count.
- Clear all in the title bar removes every Idle and Closed session; Restore Removed Sessions is in the
… menu.
- The view can be dragged anywhere: the bottom Panel, the Secondary Side Bar, or another view container.
- The badge counts the sessions waiting for you.
Requirements
- The Claude Code extension, with sessions started from its panel.
- On Windows, a session is matched to the window whose extension host started its Claude process, so each window lists exactly its own sessions. On macOS and Linux, a session is listed in every window that has the session's working folder open.
How it works
The extension relies on Claude Code internals (observed in version 2.1.284), not a public API, so a Claude Code update can break it:
~/.claude/sessions/<pid>.json: one file per running Claude process, with status (busy/waiting/idle) and waitingFor. A session belongs to this window when its process's parent is this window's extension host.~/.claude/projects/<folder>/<sessionId>.jsonl: the transcript. It provides the title (ai-title) and reports when agents finish.~/.claude/projects/<folder>/<sessionId>/subagents/: one transcript and meta file per subagent.- Clicking runs Claude's
claude-vscode.editor.open command with the session id.
The Claude Master output channel logs every change in the list. If something looks wrong, please open an issue and include that log.
Contributing
Bug reports and pull requests are welcome. See CONTRIBUTING.md for how to build and test the extension.
License
MIT
