context-view

The context window as a plugin: one row in the band above the prompt, drawn the way Claude Code draws its own meters. The cells the context fills come first in ▰, the window left in dim ▱, and the reserve auto-compact keeps at the window's end in dim ▰; then the percentage used, the tokens over the window, and the tokens left before auto-compact, joined by Claude Code's byline separator.

▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▱▱▱▱▱▱▱▱▱▰▰▰  42% · 84.1k/200k tokens · 82.9k until auto-compact

The row follows the session after every main-thread turn and after every request of a running turn, so it moves while a long turn works; a subagent's requests are left out. It reads the window again whenever the window itself moves: after /clear, a resume or a branch, a compaction (/compact, auto-compact, or a plugin's), a model switch (/model, the picker, a fallback), and a change to auto-compact (/autocompact, or the /config toggle). The engine can land those after the hook that sees them has returned, so the row reads them a tenth of a second later, and twice more after that for a busy machine. Every two seconds it also compares the engine's live figures with its reading, without asking for a breakdown, so a change no event announces, such as a rewound conversation, shows within two seconds.

Until a response of the window has landed (a new session, and the window after /clear or a compaction), the row shows the engine's local estimate, the total /context shows, each figure marked with ~ as Claude Code marks an approximation:

▱▱▱▱▱▱▱▱▱▱▱▱▱▱▱▱▱▱▱▰  ~3% · ~33.4k/1m tokens · ~933.6k until auto-compact

/context-view hides the row and shows it again, at once even while a turn runs, leaving Context view hidden or Context view shown in the transcript. /context-view hide and /context-view show (or off and on) set it whatever it was, and any other word is answered with Usage: /context-view [show|hide]. The choice holds in later sessions.

The meter and the percentage are drawn in the blue Claude Code fills its usage meters with, the tokens and the headroom dim. From six tenths of the way to the auto-compact threshold they turn to Claude Code's warning colour, the headroom with them, and within the last 20k tokens before it, where Claude Code's own line under the prompt appears, to its error colour; past the threshold the headroom reads auto-compact next. The headroom counts the last reply too, which the next request carries, as Claude Code counts it toward its threshold. Every colour is a theme key (permission, warning, error, and the dim text's), so the row follows the dark, light, daltonized and ANSI themes; nothing is bold.

The reserve is the one /context draws. Where Claude Code compacts only once the API refuses a full window, as it runs a 200k model with no compaction window set, /context keeps none and neither does the row: the headroom counts down to the window's end.

▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▱▱▱▱  80% · 160k/200k tokens · 40k until auto-compact

With auto-compact off, the reserve is the room Claude Code keeps for a reply and for a manual /compact, and the headroom counts down to where it stops sending requests (92.9k before the limit), then asks for run /compact to continue as Claude Code's own line does.

The meter spans the model's whole window, as the percentage and the tokens do. Where a setting caps the window compaction measures against below the model's (/autocompact 150000, or autoCompactWindow), everything past the threshold is reserve, so the meter shows how little of a large window is left before auto-compact runs:

▱▱▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰  ~3% · ~33.9k/1m tokens · ~83.1k until auto-compact

The row starts at the prompt's text column, where the hints under the prompt start, and keeps clear of the [-] the engine draws at the band's right end. As the band narrows, the meter steps down from 20 cells to 12 and 8, as Claude Code's progress rows narrow their bars, and every word stays; once even that does not fit, the headroom goes, then the tokens, the meter widening again each time, and the percentage stays. In Ghostty the meter is drawn in █ and ░, as Claude Code draws its own there. Nothing is drawn while a survey holds the band, while the row is hidden, or while the engine has neither a figure nor an estimate. Every mod shares the band, so what the mods after this one draw there, Claude Code's own notes among them, stays below the row.

Counts print as Claude Code prints them (84.1k, 200k, 1m). The percentage is the status line's: the last response's input tokens over the model's window. Claude Code's own context used line, which it shows instead of a countdown where compaction waits for the API, counts against the window less the room it keeps for a reply, so it reads higher (89% context used where the row reads 80%). The threshold and the reserve come from the breakdown /context draws, estimated locally with no request sent; where no breakdown answers, the 33k Claude Code usually keeps stands in. A reading the engine cannot give, a command it will not register, and a choice it cannot save go to the debug log (claude --debug) under the plugin's name, and the row keeps its last reading. A choice the store cannot read back leaves the row as it was. A change to autoCompactEnabled made by editing a settings file, rather than in /config, shows after the next turn.

Where Claude Code's built-in guard runs, with managed settings or a Team or Enterprise plan, the settings-hook events (classic.*) don't reach a mod a person installs. The row also follows /clear, /resume, /branch and /model through the commands themselves, and the check every two seconds covers the rest.

hooks/register.ts is the module; everything under hooks/ is its parts, importing claude-code and one another alone. types/index.d.ts declares the values the module keeps in $.state, so they survive a hot reload and each write draws the row again.

What it hooks

event	what the hook does
session.start	Registers /context-view; once the session is up, reads which marks the terminal draws the meter with, copies the person's choice from the store, takes the first reading, and starts the check of the engine's live figures every two seconds.
classic.SessionStart of clear, resume, fork	Once the engine has run it: copies the choice again and takes a reading, as those reset $.state, and reads again once a resumed session has been swapped in.
session.measure	After a main-thread turn whose context moved: takes a reading, the fill from the figures the engine pushed.
turn.step	After each request of the main loop: the input tokens it was answered over are the fill at that moment.
session.compact	After a compaction of the main window that stands (not one computed ahead of time, a subagent's, or one vetoed): reads the window once the engine has landed it.
classic.PostModelSwitch	Reads the new model's window once the engine has moved to it.
config.set of autoCompact	Reads the window once /config has turned auto-compact on or off.
command.run of clear, resume, branch	Passes the command on, then copies the choice again and reads the window, as the classic.SessionStart hook does where the guard holds that event back.
command.run of autocompact, model	Passes the command on, then reads the window it set.
command.run of context-view	Hides or shows the row as asked, keeps the choice in the store, and says which.
ui.render of AbovePrompt	Draws the row above what the mods after it draw; passes while a survey holds the band, while the row is hidden, and while there is nothing to draw.

What it calls on $

clock.after (the readings after a change the engine lands late), clock.every (the check of the live figures), command.register, env.get (TERM and TERM_PROGRAM, once a load, to tell Ghostty), session.usage (with breakdown: 'summary', estimated locally; the plain figures where that fails), state.get, state.set, store.get, store.set, ui.log (to the debug log alone) and ui.resolve.

Try it

claude --plugin-dir /path/to/context-view

The row appears above the prompt as soon as the session is up: the estimate in a new session, the restored figure in a resumed one. Claude Code 2.1.287 or later.

Install

This repository is its own marketplace:

/plugin marketplace add kongyo2/context-view
/plugin install context-view@context-view
/reload-plugins

Testing

claude plugin test .

Each file under tests/ covers the file of its name under hooks/. tests/register.test.ts drives the module through a session's events (the start, the estimate before the first response, measurements, a running turn's requests and their replies, /clear, a resume, a branch, compactions of each kind, a model switch, /config and /autocompact, a rewind, a reading that resolves late, /context-view and its words, a survey, another mod's note, the built-in guard, failed readings, refused calls, Ghostty) on the terminal and the desktop, and tests/views/band.test.ts reads the drawn row at each width and level, as an estimate, and over a capped window.

claude plugin validate .claude-plugin/plugin.json

reports what the module hooks and calls; claude plugin validate . reads this folder as the marketplace it also is.