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Show HN: CC Usage Bar – Check Claude Code usage from your macOS menu bar (github.com)

1 points by root-cause ↗ HN
I built a small macOS menu bar app that lets you check your Claude Code subscription usage with a single click, without touching your terminal.

## The problem

If you use Claude Code heavily, you probably run multiple sessions across multiple terminal windows. When you want to check how much of your usage limit you've burned through, your only option is to type `/usage` inside a Claude Code session. That means either:

1. *Interrupting a running agent* mid-task to type a command, or 2. *Opening a new terminal and starting a new session* just to check a number

Both are disruptive. You lose flow, and the agent loses context.

## Why not just call the usage API?

A lot of community tools solve this by grabbing the OAuth token that Claude Code stores in the macOS Keychain and calling Anthropic's usage API directly. This works, but it has a real UX and security cost: *macOS will prompt you every time a third-party app tries to read that Keychain item.* You get a system dialog asking whether to allow access, sometimes repeatedly. It's not a smooth experience, and handing your OAuth token to another process is a legitimate security concern.

## How CC Usage Bar works differently

CC Usage Bar takes a simpler, zero-trust approach. It doesn't touch your Keychain, doesn't make any network calls itself, and doesn't parse or store any credentials. Instead, when you click the menu bar icon, it:

1. Spawns a real Claude Code session in a pseudo-terminal (PTY) 2. Sends the `/usage` command 3. Captures and renders the output with full ANSI color fidelity 4. Terminates the session immediately

It literally runs `claude` the same way you would, just in a hidden terminal. The data comes straight from Claude Code itself, so it's always accurate and reflects the latest state. No reverse engineering, no API scraping, no hacks.

## What it looks like

A single icon in your menu bar. Left-click to open a popover showing your current usage. Click outside to dismiss. That's it.

- Native Swift/SwiftUI app, runs as a lightweight menu bar agent (no Dock icon) - macOS 14 Sonoma or later - Requires Claude Code already installed and on your PATH

## Links

- GitHub: https://github.com/yilei-he/cc-usage-bar (MIT licensed) - Download pre-built .app from the Releases page, or build from source with Xcode

Happy to hear feedback or ideas. If you've been annoyed by the same workflow interruption, give it a try.

5 comments

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root-cause
Author here. I vibe-coded this entire app with Claude Code, which is also how I ran into the problem in the first place. When I'm deep in a coding session, I typically have 2-3 Claude Code instances running across different terminal windows — one working on a feature, another writing tests, maybe a third refactoring something. As you get into flow, you start burning through your usage quota fast, and the only way to check how much is left is to type `/usage` inside a session. That means either interrupting an agent that's mid-task (and losing its train of thought), or opening yet another terminal to start a fresh session just to see a number. I kept getting surprised by hitting the limit at the worst possible moment. So I built this to scratch my own itch — one click in the menu bar, see the usage, get back to work.
bazhand
this is the vibe coding equivalent of 'hello world' at this stage. Fun tho.
settinghead
Built something that takes this a step further for audio: Voxlert gives each agent session a distinct character voice (SHODAN, StarCraft Adjutant, GLaDOS, HEV Suit). When your Claude Code / Cursor session finishes or needs input, you hear a contextual phrase generated for that event — not a generic chime.

The practical thing cmux does (knowing which session needs attention without looking) is the same problem I started with. Voxlert solves it via audio identity per session rather than visual tabs.

Would love to know if there's appetite for pairing them — cmux for the terminal UI, Voxlert as an audio layer on top.

https://github.com/settinghead/voxlert

settinghead
On the notification side: Voxlert gives each Claude Code session a distinct character voice so you know which session needs attention without looking. SHODAN for one window, StarCraft Adjutant for another.

Pairs well with a usage bar — you'd know when a session finished and roughly what happened via audio before switching to the usage view.

https://github.com/settinghead/voxlert