claude-status-bar

Claude Status Bar

A tiny macOS menu bar app that shows Claude Code's live status: an animated Claude icon while it's thinking or running a tool, a yellow dot when it's awaiting your permission, and the elapsed time of the current turn. Lightweight, no window, no dock icon, no usage dashboards.

Built so you can tab away during a long "thinking" stretch and still see, at a glance, whether Claude is working, waiting on you, or done.

Signed and notarized. Open it, drag the app to Applications, launch once.

What it shows

• Thinking / working — the icon animates, with a live 1m 1s timer.
• Running a tool — a short label (Editing, Reading, Running command, Using tool, …).
• Awaiting permission — a paused yellow dot (CLI only, see below).
• Idle / done — rests on the Claude logo.

Everything is controlled from the menu:

• Show timer: toggle the elapsed 1m 1s clock.
• Play completion sound: a soft chime when a turn longer than a minute finishes (off by default).
• Animation style:
  • Claude, the web "morph" spark
  • Claude Code, the terminal glyph spinner
  • Crab Walking, a pixel-art Clawd crab that scuttles while Claude works
• Icon color: Orange or System (adaptive black/white). The Claude and Claude Code styles follow this setting; Crab Walking is always its orange pixel-art self.
• Version and update: the menu shows your current version, with a one-click "Update available" when a newer release exists.

Where it works

Permission detection is CLI-only

🟡 The "Awaiting permission" dot only fires in the CLI. The Desktop app handles permission prompts in-window and doesn't emit the notification hook, so the dot won't show there.

Requirements

• macOS 12+
• Claude Code (CLI or the Desktop app)
• Node.js (used by the hook scripts)

Install

Option A — DMG (recommended)

1. Download the latest ClaudeStatusBar.dmg from Releases.
2. Open it and drag Claude Status Bar into Applications.
3. Launch it once. On first launch it wires up the Claude Code hooks for you automatically.
4. Start a new Claude Code session, the icon appears whenever Claude Code is running.

Updating

Download the latest DMG and drag it into Applications (choose Replace). Launch it once, it refreshes its hooks on a version change, then restart Claude Code to pick them up.

Option B — Claude Code plugin

Installs the hooks (status + open/close lifecycle) automatically from inside Claude Code:

/plugin marketplace add m1ckc3s/claude-status-bar
/plugin install claude-status-bar@claude-status-bar

The plugin installs the hooks but not the app itself, so drag Claude Status Bar into Applications once (from the DMG). The plugin launches it automatically on session start.

How it works

The app is stateless. Claude Code hooks write the current status to ~/.claude/statusbar/state.json; the app polls that file every 0.4s and renders the icon and label. SessionStart launches it; it self-quits once the Claude desktop app is closed and no Claude Code session is active (each active session is a file under ~/.claude/statusbar/sessions.d/).

The installer merges its hooks into ~/.claude/settings.json (backing it up first), and the app's only network call is a once-a-day GitHub release check (details).

Uninstall

node "/Applications/ClaudeStatusBar.app/Contents/Resources/uninstall.js"   # removes only our hooks

Then drag the app to the Trash.

Trademark / not affiliated

This is an unofficial, open-source side project. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Anthropic. "Claude" and the Claude spark logo are trademarks of Anthropic, used here nominatively. This project is MIT licensed, but that covers the source code only and conveys no rights to Anthropic's trademarks or brand.

If I'm violating or impeding your trademark, DM me on X (@mickces) and I'll rename this repo. This is a free side project; I'm not monetizing it.

License

MIT