Claude Usage Bars
The most customizable Claude Code usage indicator for VS Code.
No more hitting usage limits mid-flow. See your Claude Code session and weekly limits right in the VS Code status bar — and make them look exactly how you want.
What's new in this fork
A heavily extended fork of jjsmackay/claude-usage-vscode. On top of the original status bar indicator, it adds:
- 13 render styles — ASCII, Unicode bars, vertical meters, and crisp codicon meters.
- A live settings panel — pick a style and tune everything with an instant preview, no JSON editing.
- Per-window styles — render the session and weekly bars in different styles.
- Custom colors — warn/critical thresholds with your own hex colors.
- Burn-rate analytics — a 24-hour sparkline, consumption rate, and an ETA to the limit.
- Graceful rate-limit handling — a clear
429 state with automatic backoff.
Features
Styles
Choose how usage is rendered. {p} is the percentage; in Both mode, bar styles draw a separate bar for the session and weekly limits.
| Group |
Style |
Example |
| ASCII |
percent |
✼ 45% |
| ASCII |
dual |
✼ 45% · 23% |
| ASCII |
dots |
✼ ●●●●●○○○○○ 45% |
| ASCII |
brackets |
✼ [####······] 45% |
| ASCII |
minimal |
45% |
| Graphic |
blocks |
✼ ▰▰▰▰▱▱▱▱ 45% |
| Graphic |
braille |
✼ ⣿⣿⣦⣀ 45% |
| Graphic |
gradient |
✼ ▓▓▓▓░░░░ 45% |
| Vertical |
vmeter |
✼ ▆ 45% |
| Vertical |
vtwin |
✼ ▆▃ 45·23 |
| Vertical |
vgauge |
✼ ███▄▁▁▁▁ 45% |
| Icon |
iconmeter |
vector circle meter (codicons) |
| Icon |
iconsmall |
vector circle meter, smaller |
Bar length is configurable from 4 to 40 segments.
Settings panel
Click the status bar item (or run Claude Usage: Open Appearance Settings) to open a panel with:
- a live gallery of every style,
- the selected style previewed at 15 / 30 / 40 / 60 / 80 / 95%,
- color pickers and threshold controls,
…all applied to the status bar instantly as you change them.
Colors
Tint the indicator as usage climbs. Set warn and critical thresholds, and optionally your own hex colors for the normal / warn / critical states. Coloring can be turned off entirely.
Analytics
Hover the status bar for the full breakdown — session (5h), weekly (7d), Opus, and Apps windows with progress bars and reset countdowns — plus an Analytics section: a sparkline of session usage over the last 24 hours, the current burn rate (%/h), and an estimated time to 100%.
Resilience
When the Claude API rate-limits requests, the status bar shows a clear 🕐 429 state (instead of a raw error) and automatically backs off using the server's Retry-After hint.
Settings reference
| Setting |
Default |
Description |
claudeUsage.statusBarStyle |
vgauge |
Main render style (session). |
claudeUsage.statusBarStyleWeekly |
vmeter |
Style for the weekly bar in Both mode (same = match main). |
claudeUsage.statusBarDisplay |
both |
Which window(s) to show: session, weekly, highest, both. |
claudeUsage.statusBarIcon |
✼ |
Leading icon (empty to hide). |
claudeUsage.barLength |
8 |
Bar segments for bar styles (4–40). |
claudeUsage.colorEnabled |
true |
Tint the indicator by usage. |
claudeUsage.warnThreshold |
75 |
Percent at which it turns to the warn color. |
claudeUsage.critThreshold |
90 |
Percent at which it turns to the critical color. |
claudeUsage.normalColor |
theme |
Custom hex for normal usage. |
claudeUsage.warnColor |
theme |
Custom hex for the warn level. |
claudeUsage.critColor |
theme |
Custom hex for the critical level. |
claudeUsage.updateInterval |
300 |
How often to poll for usage, in seconds. |
claudeUsage.showNotifications |
false |
Get pinged when any window hits 90%. |
Install
From the VS Code Marketplace: search Claude Usage Bars, or:
code --install-extension mtglitch.claude-usage-bars
Authentication
The extension reads your existing Claude Code credentials — no separate login.
- macOS: reads the OAuth token from your system Keychain (added by Claude Code on login).
- Linux: reads from
~/.claude/.credentials.json.
User info (name, email, subscription type) comes from ~/.claude.json. If the status bar shows an auth error, re-run claude in your terminal to refresh your credentials, then reload the VS Code window.
Requirements
VS Code 1.74.0+ and an active Claude Code subscription.
Credits
Forked from jjsmackay/claude-usage-vscode by Jonathan Mackay. Maintained and extended by mtglitch.
License
MIT
