Session Manager for Claude Code

Too many Claude Code chats to keep track of? Sort them into groups that fill themselves, see at a glance which ones need you, and hand a long chat off to a fresh one in one click.

🔒 Runs on your machine · one usage check with Anthropic, nothing else · free

Not affiliated with Anthropic. This is an independent extension. "Claude" and "Claude Code" are trademarks of Anthropic.

At a glance

Is this for you?

Worth installing if you:

• Run several Claude Code sessions at once
• Work across multiple tickets or projects
• Lose track of which chat had which conversation, or which one is waiting on you

Probably not needed if you:

• Only keep a handful of sessions
• Don't use the Claude Code VS Code extension

Get started

1. Install, then open the Session Manager sidebar.
2. Click Auto-group my sessions.
3. Untick any suggested groups you don't want, then Create. Done.

Click any session to open it in Claude Code. Click ? in the sidebar header for an animated guide.

Features

🤝 Hand off in 1 click

Long chats get slow and forgetful. Continue in a clean one without losing the thread.

1. Hover a session row and click the hand-off button.
2. A new chat opens with the prompt already typed in.
3. Press Enter to send it.

The extension writes a short brief (the original request, your latest requests and Claude's last reply) for the new chat to read. If you use a Stop hook that saves handoffs to ~/.claude/handoffs/, that one is used instead.

🪄 Sessions that sort themselves

Set up once

1. In Groups, click Auto-group my sessions. It suggests groups from words and ticket keys that recur in your session titles, merges word forms ("driver" and "drivers"), and never suggests a group that would end up nearly empty.
2. Untick what you don't want, then Create.

Then, automatically

• Every new session whose title matches a group is filed into it. A matching subgroup wins over its parent.

Manual adjusting

• Move a session: its ⋯ menu → Move to…, or drag it. Anything you place by hand stays put.
• Make your own group: + in the Groups header, or on a group for a subgroup.
• Change a group: its ⋯ menu → rename, auto-file keywords, colour, delete. Deleting moves its contents up a level; nothing is lost.

It's simple word matching on your machine, not AI, so rename or merge groups afterwards as you like.

🔴 Never miss what needs your input

The Overview counts sessions that are running, pending your input, and active today. Hover a tile to see the list, open or hand off a session, or Clear all pending once you've dealt with them.

📊 View your usage

• Account usage in the Overview: a percentage and bar, orange from 75% and red from 90%, with the last-updated time. Works with spend limits; subscription session limits are supported but less tested.
• Per session: the estimated cost is at the top of each session's ⋯ menu. It's calculated from the transcript's token counts at list prices, so treat it as a comparison, not a bill.

📌 Customise your toolbar

Every action lives in a row's ⋯ menu. Click the pin next to one to show it as a button on every row; click again to remove it. By default, Hand off is pinned on sessions and New subgroup on groups.

⭐ Also included

• Search: titles and ticket keys as you type, and the full text of every conversation from three letters.
• Stars, Recent, Archive: keep favourites close, see your five latest, and hide finished sessions without deleting them.
• NEW badge on sessions started in the last 30 minutes, and older sessions folded behind a "N Older Sessions Hidden" row.
• Rename sessions: a new name shows in the sidebar straight away and in Claude Code too (tab title and /resume). A running session picks it up once it's closed.
• Light and dark themes, with a frosted-glass look.

Requirements

• VS Code 1.85 or later
• The Claude Code extension, installed and signed in. Without it, sessions still list, but you can't open them.

Privacy

Everything happens on your machine, with one exception: to show your usage, the extension asks Anthropic (api.anthropic.com) for it at most every 5 minutes, using the login Claude Code already stored (the macOS Keychain, or ~/.claude/.credentials.json elsewhere). On a Mac, macOS may ask once whether Session Manager can read "Claude Code-credentials". Nothing is sent anywhere else.

It reads:

• Claude Code transcripts in ~/.claude/projects/
• Claude Code's live-session files in ~/.claude/sessions/
• VS Code's workspace state, to reuse the tab titles Claude Code shows

It writes:

• ~/.claude/session-tabs.json: your groups, labels, stars, archive and pinned actions
• ~/.claude/session-tabs-usage.json: the last usage reading, shared by your VS Code windows
• Hand-off briefs in ~/.claude/session-tabs-handoffs/, only when you use hand-off
• One line at the end of a session's transcript when you rename it, in the same format Claude Code uses for its own renames. Nothing else in the transcript is changed.

Known limitations

• The sidebar shows sessions for the first folder in your workspace only.
• It reads Claude Code's local files directly. These aren't public APIs, so a Claude Code update can change them and break parts of the sidebar until this extension catches up. It relies on:
  • the transcript folder layout and JSONL format
  • the per-process session status files
  • the claude-vscode.editor.open command, for opening sessions and pre-filling hand-offs
  • tab titles and session groups in VS Code's internal state database
  • an undocumented usage endpoint, which Anthropic may rate-limit or change. If it does, the last reading stays up with its time.

Commands