A Dashboard for Your AI Assistant's Energy Levels
A tiny open-source tool that shows you exactly how much of Claude's attention budget you've used — before you run out mid-task.
The problem it solves
Imagine you're working with a very capable assistant who can only hold a certain amount of information in their head at once. And they have a daily limit on how many hours they can work. Now imagine you have no way of knowing how close they are to either limit — until suddenly they stop mid-sentence.
That's the frustrating reality of using Claude Code for longer projects. You're working through something complex, and with no warning, Claude hits its limit and the session resets. Whatever momentum you had, gone.
This small tool — called claude-hud — adds a little live display at the bottom of your screen. It shows you a progress bar of how much "thinking space" Claude is using, how close you are to your hourly and weekly limits, and what tasks are in progress. It refreshes constantly, every fraction of a second, so you always know where you stand.
Why it matters
It's a bit like having a fuel gauge on a car that previously had none. You can plan. You can finish a task before hitting a wall, or save a complex job for when you have a fresh window. Small thing. Real difference.
Nearly 9,000 people have already found this useful enough to save it on GitHub.
Words worth knowing
Context window — Think of this as Claude's short-term memory. The bigger the conversation or task, the more of this memory fills up. When it's full, Claude starts fresh.
Rate limit — A cap on how much you can use Claude in a given time period. Like a data plan, but for AI thinking.
Open-source — The tool is free, publicly available, and anyone can look at how it works or improve it.
Plugin — A small add-on that gives an existing tool a new feature, without replacing or rebuilding it.
If you're using Claude for any kind of longer work — writing, planning, research — it's worth knowing these limits exist before you hit them.