Free Windows widget shows Claude usage limits, built with Claude Code in 3k lines of PowerShell
venhed · reddit · 2026-10-17
A Reddit user released a free, MIT-licensed Windows floating widget and tray icon that mirrors Claude Code's /usage data — session, weekly and Fable limits refreshed every minute, running Claude Code sessions (working/waiting/idle), Anthropic service status, and update alerts.
How it works
- Periodically runs claude -p "/usage" headless to read server-side percentages without calling the model — zero tokens spent
- Session list comes from Claude Code's registry in /.claude/sessions
- Pure PowerShell 5.1 + WPF, 3k lines, no dependencies beyond Claude Code
The Clawd mascot: a pixel crab that reacts to the data — sleeps in its burrow when idle, runs while a session works, waves a "?" when waiting for input, sweats near the limit, and lies belly-up at 100%. Hearts in the header show remaining session quota.
How Claude Code helped build it
- Reproduced the mascot's pose glyphs cell-by-cell from its own terminal welcome-screen art
- Split the single script into 18 dot-sourced modules and wrote a CLAUDE.md covering load order and PowerShell 5.1 gotchas (UTF-8 BOM, no ??)
- Added an English UI with live language switching, translated comments, and wrote a recorder script that renders the README GIFs from WPF — catching a layout bug where English text overlapped the header
- Gotcha found: running the /usage call from Git Bash turns it into a file path sent to the model, so it only calls from PowerShell
Install by cloning or downloading from github.com/Enhed/clawd-usage-winwidget and double-clicking start-widget.vbs (needs Windows 10/11 and a logged-in Claude Code).
Related event: Developer Builds Open-Source Windows Widget to Track Claude Code Usage(2 posts)→
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