Claude HUD

A Claude Code plugin that shows what's happening — context usage, active tools, running agents, and todo progress. Always visible below your input.

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Install

Inside a Claude Code instance, run the following commands:

Step 1: Add the marketplace

/plugin marketplace add jarrodwatts/claude-hud

Step 2: Install the plugin

On Linux, /tmp is often a separate filesystem (tmpfs), which causes plugin installation to fail with:

EXDEV: cross-device link not permitted

Fix: Set TMPDIR before installing:

mkdir -p ~/.cache/tmp && TMPDIR=~/.cache/tmp claude

Then run the install command below in that session. This is a Claude Code platform limitation.

/plugin install claude-hud

After that, reload plugins:

/reload-plugins

Step 3: Configure the statusline

/claude-hud:setup

On Windows, Node.js LTS is the supported runtime for Claude HUD setup. If setup says no JavaScript runtime was found, install Node.js for your shell first:

winget install OpenJS.NodeJS.LTS

Then restart your shell and run /claude-hud:setup again.

Done! Restart Claude Code to load the new statusLine config, then the HUD will appear.

On Windows, make that a full Claude Code restart after setup writes the new statusLine config.

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What is Claude HUD?

Claude HUD gives you better insights into what's happening in your Claude Code session.

What You See	Why It Matters
Project path	Know which project you're in (configurable 1-3 directory levels)
Context health	Know exactly how full your context window is before it's too late
Tool activity	Watch Claude read, edit, and search files as it happens
Agent tracking	See which subagents are running and what they're doing
Todo progress	Track task completion in real-time

What You See

Default (2 lines)

[Opus] │ my-project git:(main*)
Context █████░░░░░ 45% │ Usage ██░░░░░░░░ 25% (1h 30m / 5h)

• Line 1 — Model, provider label when positively identified (for example Bedrock, Vertex), project path, git branch
• Line 2 — Context bar (green → yellow → red) and usage rate limits

Optional lines (enable via /claude-hud:configure)

◐ Edit: auth.ts | ✓ Read ×3 | ✓ Grep ×2        ← Tools activity
◐ explore [haiku]: Finding auth code (2m 15s)    ← Agent status
▸ Fix authentication bug (2/5)                   ← Todo progress

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How It Works

Claude HUD uses Claude Code's native statusline API — no separate window, no tmux required, works in any terminal.

Claude Code → stdin JSON → claude-hud → stdout → displayed in your terminal
           ↘ transcript JSONL (tools, agents, todos)

Key features:

• Native token data from Claude Code (not estimated)
• Scales with Claude Code's reported context window size, including newer 1M-context sessions
• Parses the transcript for tool/agent activity
• Updates every ~300ms

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Configuration

Customize your HUD anytime:

/claude-hud:configure

The guided flow handles layout, language, and common display toggles. Advanced overrides such as custom colors and thresholds are preserved there, but you set them by editing the config file directly:

• First time setup: Choose a preset (Full/Essential/Minimal), pick a label language, then fine-tune individual elements
• Customize anytime: Toggle items on/off, adjust git display style, switch layouts, or change label language
• Preview before saving: See exactly how your HUD will look before committing changes

Presets

Preset	What's Shown
Full	Everything enabled — tools, agents, todos, git, usage, duration
Essential	Activity lines + git status, minimal info clutter
Minimal	Core only — just model name and context bar

After choosing a preset, you can turn individual elements on or off.

Manual Configuration

Edit ~/.claude/plugins/claude-hud/config.json directly for advanced settings such as colors.*, pathLevels, maxWidth, threshold overrides, display.timeFormat, and display.promptCacheTtlSeconds. Running /claude-hud:configure preserves those manual settings while still letting you change language, layout, and the common guided toggles.

Simplified and Traditional Chinese HUD labels are available as explicit opt-ins. English stays the default unless you choose a Chinese locale in /claude-hud:configure or set language in config. The zh alias maps to Simplified Chinese, and zh-TW maps to Traditional Chinese. Guided config writes the canonical zh-Hans or zh-Hant value.

Options

Option	Type	Default	Description
language	en | zh | zh-Hans | zh-Hant | zh-TW	en	HUD label language. Use zh or zh-Hans for Simplified Chinese and zh-Hant or zh-TW for Traditional Chinese.
lineLayout	string	expanded	Layout: expanded (multi-line) or compact (single line)
pathLevels	1-3	1	Directory levels to show in project path
maxWidth	number | null	null	Optional fallback width used only when terminal width detection fails completely
forceMaxWidth	boolean	false	Always use maxWidth when it is set, even if terminal width detection returns a smaller value
elementOrder	string[]	["project","addedDirs","context","usage","promptCache","memory","environment","tools","skills","mcp","agents","todos","sessionTime"]	Expanded-mode element order. Omit entries to hide them in expanded mode. Existing configs keep their explicit order until updated.
display.mergeGroups	string[][]	[["context","usage"]]	Expanded-mode groups that should share a line when adjacent. Set [] to disable merged lines.
gitStatus.enabled	boolean	true	Show git branch in HUD
gitStatus.showDirty	boolean	true	Show * for uncommitted changes
gitStatus.showAheadBehind	boolean	false	Show ↑N ↓N for ahead/behind remote
gitStatus.pushWarningThreshold	number	0	Color the ahead count with the warning color at or above this unpushed-commit count ( disables it)