[HN Gopher] Show HN: Claude Code Usage Monitor - real-time track...
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Show HN: Claude Code Usage Monitor - real-time tracker to dodge
usage cut-offs
I kept slamming into Claude Code limits mid-session and couldn't
find a quick way to see how close I was getting, so I hacked
together a tiny local tracker. Streams your prompt + completion
usage in real time Predicts whether you'll hit the cap before the
session ends Runs 100 % locally (no auth, no server) Presets for
Pro, Max x 5, Max x 20 -- tweak a JSON if your plan's different
GitHub: https://github.com/Maciek-roboblog/Claude-Code-Usage-
Monitor It's already spared me a few "why did my run just stop?"
moments, but it's still rough around the edges. Feedback, bug
reports, and PRs welcome!
Author : Maciej-roboblog
Score : 178 points
Date : 2025-06-19 09:46 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| pbowyer wrote:
| With uv, is there a way to install Python and Node tools like
| this in a self-contained way so they appear to the system as a
| single executable?
|
| I guess I don't want to duplicate Python/Node for every tool, but
| I also don't want it to be fragile. And this wants a Node CLI
| tool installed globally, which I've found breaks easily with
| changing versions.
| Maciej-roboblog wrote:
| Good point, yes i can do it. If you can please add issue in
| github and i will implement it :D
| Maciej-roboblog wrote:
| it is on my todo list
| JimDabell wrote:
| > I don't want to duplicate Python/Node for every tool
|
| `uv tool install` doesn't duplicate Python for every tool.
| Maciej-roboblog wrote:
| Today, I will commit a new Auto Mode (with DuckDB) that uses
| machine learning to understand your actual token limits, not
| hardcoded solution.
| robbomacrae wrote:
| I'm working on a wrapper for these terminal agent coders that
| reads directly from them... you might want to consider that
| approach? I hope to have it here on ShowHN as soon as its
| better tested but email me if you want in on the private beta
| :)
| robbomacrae wrote:
| actually reading more about how you ingest
| ~/.claude/projects/ _/_.jsonl the wrapper method is probably
| over kill..
|
| how about making it a tool that claude can use directly?
| alFReD-NSH wrote:
| How it does it monitor usage?
| Maciej-roboblog wrote:
| Check directory ~/.claude/projects/*/*.jsonl ;) hah very
| interesting topic. I have a plan to write blog post about it
| (all conversations history with metadata inside json lines
| files) What do you think about this idea? Interesting?
| M4v3R wrote:
| Wow, I had no idea Claude Code had this kind of verbose
| logging turned on by default. Looking around I also found a
| cool tool for converting these logs to HTML format for easy
| viewing: https://github.com/daaain/claude-code-log
| Maciej-roboblog wrote:
| Haha, in that case it sounds like an article I could
| actually handle. By the way, is it better to go with an
| article or short-form video?
| pbowyer wrote:
| Film video, transcribe, edit to become article?
|
| I'm of an age where I rarely watch short-form videos so
| would read the article but you'll miss an audience if
| that's all you produce.
| Maciej-roboblog wrote:
| Okay, sounds good -- if I manage to do it, I'll send you
| a message
| Hortinstein wrote:
| Is there anyway to ensure these logs are output in a current
| project folder? Would like to store a copy in git for
| reference
| Maciej-roboblog wrote:
| Yes in next relesase with duckdb, We will have the
| possibility of a simple export
| alFReD-NSH wrote:
| It's definitely interesting. Probably, one could also see how
| much of the context is unnecessary to optimise usage. I
| wonder if one could also detect whether cache was used.
| Maciej-roboblog wrote:
| Yes, cache write and read is available to fetch i can add
| new flag to view this values, please create issue in
| repository with this idea https://github.com/Maciek-
| roboblog/Claude-Code-Usage-Monitor...
| soco wrote:
| I keep the credits page open and refresh it from time to time,
| because I honestly only care about money, not about tokens
| whatever these are.
| Maciej-roboblog wrote:
| This tool is for plans with a fixed cost -- like Pro Max x5
| or x10 -- not for API usage.
| ed_mercer wrote:
| Thank you! For me, I wish it was just a simple command that
| outputs how much I have used out of my plan already. Also I feel
| it's a bummer that I need python when CC is a node.js tool.
| Maciej-roboblog wrote:
| I will update it in next release :D And you will be able to
| install the package directly.
| teekert wrote:
| Claude is cool, they focus on cool and useful things.
|
| But man do I just want a way to quickly glance at my API credits
| and to just occasionally chat with a model from those credits
| without librechat of openwebui. Or set some limits, or see some
| usage metrics.
|
| And please please use "forever auth" with passkeys or something,
| what is up with that auth email that just takes ages for a quick
| glance?! It always takes me 3 attempts to find what address I
| used at sign-up...
|
| Oh and make it clearer why you have that API/credits system and a
| subscription, why is it so difficult to understand when you start
| using Claude that it's 2 different unrelated worlds?? First time
| I started my subscription I just couldn't figure out where the
| API section was, until I realized it just wasn't there.
|
| I feel like I'm "holding it wrong", but please make it easier to
| hold it right then.
| redrove wrote:
| >And please please use "forever auth" with passkeys or
| something, what is up with that auth email that just takes ages
| for a quick glance?! It always takes me 3 attempts to find what
| address I used at sign-up...
|
| As a person with the simple but brilliant technology of a
| freaking password manager, I LOATHE email to login/no-password
| websites. They are dreadful, we've somehow managed to come up
| with something worse in UX rather than move forward.
|
| If you're working on a product that does this, or wants to do
| this, please please PLEASE reconsider, it's such a PITA for
| technical users and normies alike.
| teekert wrote:
| Yeah, it's the reason I eventually tuned out of Slack too
| (obviously I don't use it day to day). I used it for some
| things, some community stuff, every now and then.
|
| So when I open it up on a new machine or after months, you
| have to go through that magic link bs multiple times! For all
| your accounts/channels! I did that 2 or 3 times and then I
| just stopped using it.
|
| I don't even remember what I signed up for over the years, I
| know some of it was nice (like an LoRa IOT channel, an "AWS
| professionals" channel, I set something up for the LoRaWan
| network in the previous city I lived in... All just tuned out
| because of the login bs.
| sokoloff wrote:
| I don't get why Slack can't figure out how to help me
| migrate all my workspaces on a device I still have and am
| logged into in a new one in fewer than 3 steps per
| workspace. Sure, if I've lost all devices with the
| workspaces connected, maybe it needs to be that much PITA,
| but it's a pretty common case to add/switch to a new
| machine or device and that process is obnoxiously poorly
| executed right now.
| threeducks wrote:
| Another reason to ditch email-to-login: It decreases active
| user count because login is such a chore. I only use those
| websites if I absolutely have to and there are no
| alternatives.
| rtsil wrote:
| I used to think the same thing, and I still want a
| login/password alternative for me. But after seeing normies
| use online accounts and the trouble they have with password
| managers, I realized one of my friends had the most secure
| process: she would create extremely high-entropy passwords
| everywhere, but not remember them. Once she's logged out of
| her sessions after a couple of months, she uses the password
| forgotten link to generate another password, and so on. So
| her passwords are never stored anywhere, she's immune to many
| login stealing phishing attempts through genuine-looking fake
| websites as she can't enter the password, she doesn't have to
| deal with syncing the passwords between all her devices, and
| she doesn't have passwords on a post-it on her workstation.
| And she also doesn't get those annoying emails saying "your
| password is 6-months old, please change it or else!".
|
| The email auth flow is a simplified and more efficient way to
| achieve the same outcome.
| dietr1ch wrote:
| yeah, I find it annoying, but it's a simple way of making
| something secure, piggyback on something that already made
| a decent effort at trying to being secure enough.
| Maciej-roboblog wrote:
| I can write a blog post about this, plus in the next release,
| DuckDB will be implemented along with a slightly more advanced
| max tokens algorithm.
| mellosouls wrote:
| For cursor users, a similar extension to monitor usage:
|
| https://github.com/Dwtexe/cursor-stats
| Maciej-roboblog wrote:
| Probably for API cost. It is for fixed price plans usage
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| Anyone else have a bunch of fun with Claude Code's Github
| integration... until you realized it spends from your API wallet
| balance?
|
| Oops, when I saw the /install-github-app command, I assumed that
| since I'm on a max plan and Claude Code in my terminal is free,
| then the Github integration would be free.
|
| So I hooked it up to my repo and tagged @claude in everything. It
| was a lot of fun tagging it in backburner issues and seeing it
| solve issues I couldn't be bothered to do for years. Or just
| seeing what it would come up with on really low effort poorly
| explained issues.
|
| But not worth spending 50+ cents every time.
| sokoloff wrote:
| On one hand, it violated the principle of least surprise.
|
| On another hand, you solved several years-old issues for under
| $50...which seems like a big win.
| shmoogy wrote:
| You can use your max plan ( https://github.com/grll/claude-
| code-action )
|
| Currently in gray area but allowed as per anthropic comment on
| it - https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code-
| action/issues/4#is...
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| Oh, thanks! You didn't go digging that up just for me, did
| you?
|
| I'll try it out right now.
| csomar wrote:
| > Anyone else have a bunch of fun with Claude Code's Github
| integration... until you realized it spends from your API
| wallet balance?
|
| Isn't Claude and Anthropic API two separate platforms? How does
| it spend from your other account?
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| No.
|
| https://console.anthropic.com/settings/billing
| csomar wrote:
| What's that link supposed to show? It shows my anthropic
| account and billing. My claude account and billing (with
| different payment details) is at
| https://claude.ai/settings/billing
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| I see what you mean. Anthropic's UI and system
| organization are always very confusing.
|
| Your link and my link are just two views into the same
| underlying account (unless you registered separate
| accounts of course). At your link, you can manage your
| Claude subscription. At my link, you can manage API keys
| and API credits.
|
| But they aren't siloed like you (or I) think.
|
| I got Claude Code when it launched and it always charged
| API credits until it was included in the $100 max
| subscription (and then in the cheap base subscription).
| It moves fast and it's not well communicated.
| mwigdahl wrote:
| Addressing those issues wasn't worth $0.50 apiece? That almost
| certainly translates into less than a _minute_ of fully loaded
| engineering cost from a human.
| waynenilsen wrote:
| they really should integrate this kind of thing, it is very
| annoying
| Maciej-roboblog wrote:
| thx
| bilekas wrote:
| This is pretty cool.. I like the idea, could I make a semi-snarky
| feature request and could we add the estimated power consumed to
| produce results for each session ?
| TypingOutBugs wrote:
| Soon we will have low carbon developers
| btbuildem wrote:
| We all were low carbon developers once
| cdurth wrote:
| Maybe the few that were WFH prior to AI. I just calculated
| my carbon output for commuting and going to lunch daily
| versus WFH and using AI and it's wayyy less. Let's all save
| earth, stay home and use AI.
| ozim wrote:
| Let's start with npm and node_modules first - I think it is
| responsible for at least half of the global warming.
| Maciej-roboblog wrote:
| Greta would be proud, but I'm not sure how the number of tokens
| relates to energy consumption.
| actsasbuffoon wrote:
| Soon the AI companies will have different tiers of plan based
| on carbon output.
|
| For $200 per month they'll only use carbon-free power sources
| for your prompts. At $100 they'll use nuclear, then $20 per
| month for coal, and then there will be a free tier where your
| prompts are powered by throwing baby seals into a furnace.
| Maciej-roboblog wrote:
| <3
| Lerc wrote:
| This may be pedantic, but I'm guessing baby seals are a
| renewable resource.
| bilekas wrote:
| It would be on the same level as saying burning wood for
| power plants would be considered renewable. Is it "Green"
| now.. Two different things.
| tln wrote:
| Or just straight to CO2. Google said 1000 tokens emits 8.3g
| CO2.
|
| How many tokens used in a heavy vibe coding day?
|
| Average US daily per capita is like 40kg CO2
| KMnO4 wrote:
| I don't understand the concern of this. Let's say it says
| you've used 1.521kg of CO2 today. How is that actionable?
|
| A single flight from JFK to LAX produces around 20,000kg of
| CO2. Using the 8.3g value means a flight is equivalent to
| 2.41 billion tokens.
| notarobot123 wrote:
| if you take the long view, flying is irrational too
| Maciej-roboblog wrote:
| If you have some time, feel free to open a pull request
| -- even just with a description or clarification of
| what's going on! It all sounds super interesting, but I'm
| still trying to fully grasp the business logic behind it
| Once I get the idea, I'll be happy to jump in and
| implement it.
|
| Repo is here if you're curious:
| https://github.com/Maciek-roboblog/Claude-Code-Usage-
| Monitor...
| mdemare wrote:
| Claude, "Find the hacker news discussion about github
| repo github.com/maciek-roboblog and implement the
| suggestion by bilekas. Patch format."
|
| It produced a patch. Unfortunately it was for removing
| the emojis from the readme.
| taosx wrote:
| I really dislike when people don't see this. They try to
| cut 10 grams of CO2 per day while other industries
| (shipping, aviation, rails) produce hundreds of tons per
| day and even this transportation modes are less that 20%
| with most CO2 produced mainly being in energy production
| and used by industry.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| I think it's because this line of rationality, leads to
| people to realize how ridiculous some of the conservation
| efforts are.
|
| Plastic bags, paper straws (wrapped in plastic), most
| realities of recycling, vehicle selections, etc.
|
| Leads to a lot of unpopular things.
| curious_cat_163 wrote:
| Rituals define a school of thought (or a religion). These
| are rituals of folks who want to prevent catastrophe
| through conservation. To each their own.
|
| Ultimately, individual habits do add up. But with
| climate, one would be hard pressed to find evidence that
| conservation is the path forward. It does not work,
| unfortunately.
| tln wrote:
| Sure, but that's all accounted for in per capita numbers.
| bilekas wrote:
| It doesn't necessarily need to be actionable for now but at
| the moment there is an exponential growth in the datacenter
| power usages.
|
| For now, sure it might be ridiculously minor, but when it
| starts to ramp up who's to say it wont be just a ridiculous
| amount of energy ? Maybe not even measure the CO2, but I
| would love to graph the increase of energy spent over time.
| tln wrote:
| Per capita that is what, 500kg?
|
| So on that day you are 10x'ing the US person day
| tln wrote:
| I just hit my usage limit this morning, and the article shows
| how to get these numbers so I can answer this myself -- I'd
| be curious to see what other people are doing token wise day-
| to-day
|
| ccusage says I had 1k input tokens, 12k output and 1.2m cache
| create.
|
| I'm not sure if that is 1 _8.3g, 13_ 8.3g or 1213 * 8.3g.
|
| At the highest number that's 10kg or 25% of average US daily
| per capita emission or 1 gallon of gas.
| gpm wrote:
| By any chance do you remember the source for that? Googling
| "1000 tokens emits 8.3g CO2" only gets me this thread.
| tln wrote:
| The search was "ai tokens per tonne co2" and the "1000
| tokens emits 8.3g CO2" bit was my paraphrasing from the AI
| overview.
|
| This article [0] mentions "8.3g CO2" but it's linked source
| [1] uses a different number - 4.32g. Perhaps revised after
| publication.
|
| I ran the search again and got different numbers... I'm
| sure the real numbers will be changing quite a bit over
| time too.
|
| [0] https://ditchcarbon.com/blog/llm-carbon-emissions
|
| [1] https://smartly.ai/blog/the-carbon-footprint-of-
| chatgpt-how-...
| jbentley1 wrote:
| This is great. I built a UI tool to run simultaneous Claude Code
| sessions (https://github.com/stravu/crystal) but by working on
| multiple features at once I hit the limits of my max account.
| Usually close to the reset, but it would be nice to know when it
| is time to take a break.
| Maciej-roboblog wrote:
| Please write for me on github or create issue
| https://github.com/Maciek-roboblog/Claude-Code-Usage-Monitor...
| and we can try integrate your tool with usage monitor
| rgoodwintx wrote:
| Kudos! I was just thinking about having. Laude write something
| like this for me. Not just within a project but the 5 different
| ones I have open at the same time. Too much of a good thing
| etc.
| furyofantares wrote:
| This is excellent. I am an EXTENSIVE Claude Code user but I've
| been a bit scared to write my own tooling around worktrees +
| multiple sessions because I don't understand git well enough.
|
| To be honest, I'm a little scared to use this also. I feel like
| ideally each worktree would also run in a container, but that
| seems quite a bit harder to make work as smoothly as this does.
| diego_moita wrote:
| Is there something similar to this but for Gemini?
| Maciej-roboblog wrote:
| I can implement tool like this for Gemini, please create issue
| https://github.com/Maciek-roboblog/Claude-Code-Usage-Monitor...
| with this idea
| loufe wrote:
| I really like this idea as I find Claude's transparency
| frustrating. Claude code's killer features revolve around better
| tools to manage context and limits vs the desktop app (compact
| and the % remaining until auto compact), but it's not enough.
|
| If I can offer any advice, it's that the high use of emojis in a
| project readme (at least for me) looks so unprofessional and
| makes me worry that a project was vibe -coded in the sense that
| the AI was possibly not babysat to the extent I think they
| should. That's just me, though
| oc1 wrote:
| I got into software in a time where you would get sent to a
| mental institution when spotted using emojis in a code base.
| Times have changed.. I use emojis regularly because they help
| me organize context more visually. Code has now many emojis to
| keep me happy.
| Maciej-roboblog wrote:
| This code was written in pure vibe-coding style -- mostly for
| fun. I've got about 10 years of experience in IT, and even I
| fully agree: a 1000-line main file like this one probably
| deserves to be locked away in a secure facility.
|
| But hey -- if it's stupid and it works, it ain't stupid.
| lukan wrote:
| Always depends on the cost of failure I suppose.
| wredcoll wrote:
| > looks so unprofessional and makes me worry that a project was
| vibe -coded in the sense that the AI was possibly not babysat
| to the extent I think they should. That's just me, though
|
| The irony of comments like this on software designed entirely
| for ai coding...
| lukan wrote:
| AI coding where the human stays in control and reads and
| confirms code is totally different from vibe coding where you
| don't read code and just prompt until it sort of works.
| loufe wrote:
| I completely agree. Andrej's definition was pretty explicit
| and in my experience it is two separate worlds of AI use.
| partdavid wrote:
| It strikes me as very much a current aesthetic in younger
| companies or smaller startups, maybe highly influenced by
| Notion. No one makes a list or page or calendar invite in my
| current company without choosing an emoji for it.
| adastra22 wrote:
| It was cool until 2022. Then LLMs started injecting these
| emoji everywhere and it became the chief marker for code/doc
| smell.
| danielbln wrote:
| My goto for AI generated PR descriptions and README is this
| addition to the prompt: tight, no purple prose, no emojis.
|
| That turns thrse meandering emoji fests into suitable
| documentation. YMMV
| youcefb wrote:
| if you actually look at the code, it's a single 400 line python
| file that just wraps https://github.com/ryoppippi/ccusage, so
| it's possible
| jjice wrote:
| Very neat! Is the limit on Pro really only 7k tokens? So less
| than 7k words? I feel like I get more out of that. It feels like
| that would blow up pretty quickly with an ongoing chat, but I
| never hit that.
|
| Or is this a Claude Code specific limit? I haven't used Claude
| Code extensively yet.
| rgbrenner wrote:
| pro is the $20/mo plan that they recently started allowing
| access to claude code.. but i've heard users hit the rate limit
| with a few queries.. so imo that sounds about right. the chat
| interface has its own limits separate from claude code.
| ffsm8 wrote:
| Has to be wrong. I'm on that subscription as I wanted to
| reinforce my opinion that it's still shit for devs that
| actually have experience, like it was a few months ago.
|
| While my plan didn't pan out, cuz it was way too effective, I
| can confidently say that I'm going through 3-6k tokens per
| prompt on average, and usually get around 3 hours of usage
| before I'm hitting the rate limit.
|
| The limit is probably closer to 300k then <10k
|
| Also the chat interface doesn't have a separate limit, once
| you hit it via Claude code, you cannot use the website either
| anymore.
|
| Maybe it's a 7k limit _per prompt_? Dunno if I exceeded that
| before
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| I found I can hit the limit _very_ quickly if I have it
| scan large quantities of code for analysis. If I try to be
| more surgical, and give it terse but accurate documentation
| and instructions, the budget lasts longer.
| blitzar wrote:
| Claude Code is chugging away on a step (6/10) for me right
| now:
|
| Transforming... (212s * 26.1k tokens * esc to interrupt)
|
| I reset just under 2 hours ago, probably been going at this
| pace for the last hour or so.
| bevan wrote:
| Something like this would be great for Cursor, I never know how
| many credits I'm up to for the month or how much my Max calls are
| costing.
| Hrun0 wrote:
| > Something like this would be great for Cursor, I never know
| how many credits I'm up to for the month or how much my Max
| calls are costing.
|
| I think that's by design
| martin_ wrote:
| nice ship! I wrote a blog post on how to observe trends over time
| for a team via OTel, but I prefer your method for individual
| development!
|
| https://ma.rtin.so/posts/monitoring-claude-code-with-datadog...
| bazhand wrote:
| I like this solution, I had tinkered with the Otel hoping to
| get un-redacted prompt and responses but had no luck. Did you
| perhaps get deeper into what data was useful?
| anotheryou wrote:
| interesting, so I should say hello to claude after waking up for
| an early reset 5h later....
|
| Tool also says I used 198% of my max5 plan %).
|
| I guess it expect opus usage and I was usin sonnet (after the
| first 20%, the auto thing)
| randall wrote:
| you are a saint.
| joshmlewis wrote:
| For a reference point, it says my max session limit in the past
| was ~337,492 tokens and I have the Max20 plan and 99% use Opus.
|
| My total tokens used since I started using Claude Code on May
| 27th was 1,374,439,311 worth around $3397.34.
| WXLCKNO wrote:
| I'm around ~2100 dollars equivalent on Max20 plan.
|
| Do they have huge margins on API or are they just losing money?
| I use it everyday but I don't feel like I'm abusing it or
| anything
| joshmlewis wrote:
| I've been wondering this too. They said on a podcast that the
| average usage is around $6 a day in credits but I really
| question that. If that's the case though and they do have a
| lot of Pro and higher tier subscribers that might be making
| up the difference.
| atum47 wrote:
| I read doge instead of dodge. I need to get off Reddit
| immediately
| _august wrote:
| Incredible, thank you for making this!
|
| Can this be installed with uv? https://github.com/astral-sh/uv
|
| Edit: # Install uv curl -LsSf
| https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh # Install the
| required CLI tool (Node.js) npm install -g ccusage
| # Clone and setup git clone https://github.com/Maciek-
| roboblog/Claude-Code-Usage-Monitor.git cd Claude-Code-
| Usage-Monitor # Install Python deps with uv uv
| add pytz chmod +x ccusage_monitor.py # Run it
| uv run python ccusage_monitor.py --plan max20 --timezone
| America/New_York
| _august wrote:
| I'm noticing that Token usage doesn't reset after the time window
| unless you hit 100%.
|
| This seems like a problem if for example, you hit 90% usage, pass
| the window, then burn through the remaining 10% quickly and have
| to wait a long time.
| tiku wrote:
| Had a very weird experience with Claude Code yesterday. Tried to
| convert a simple phtml table page with very old php into a new
| div layout. It didn't work and burned through 4 dollars. Perhaps
| a WSL issue but I hope that doesn't happen more.
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