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Mod · Jarrod Watts

Claude HUD.

The default Claude Code status bar is utilitarian. Claude HUD replaces it with something denser and actually informative, a HUD-style readout of what your agent is doing right now.

$ claude statusline install jarrodwatts/claude-hud

Most status lines tell you the model name and the current working directory. Claude HUD tells you the things that actually matter during a working session: how full the context window is, which tools the agent has touched recently, which subagents are running, and what is on top of the todo list. The data was always there; the HUD just surfaces it in a place the eye already lives.

The win on this mod is small per moment but compounds. You stop accidentally blowing through context limits because the bar fills up where you can see it. You stop interrupting subagents because you know they are running. You stop forgetting your own next step because the next todo is right there.

§01What's on the bar

The HUD surfaces the state that already exists in Claude Code, just in a glanceable form:

  • Live percentage of the context window consumed, with color-coding when the ceiling is approaching.
  • The active model variant, whether Opus, Sonnet, or Haiku, so you know what you are paying for right now.
  • The last three to five tool calls, which makes it easy to spot when something repetitive is happening.
  • The count and names of subagents currently running, so the impulse to type during their turn gets caught.
  • The next item from TaskList, surfaced inline so the next step is always visible.

§02Why it matters more than it sounds

The single most expensive failure mode in long agentic sessions is hitting the context ceiling and getting silently degraded responses. The HUD makes the approach visible: watching the bar climb to 80% naturally surfaces the question of whether to /compact or start a fresh session, before context exhaustion bites.

The second most expensive failure mode is interrupting yourself. When subagents are running, the temptation to keep typing is real, and that text gets dropped or jammed mid-turn. The HUD shows when to wait.

§03Setup

# claude code's status-line plugin system
claude statusline install jarrodwatts/claude-hud

# configure what shows
claude statusline configure claude-hud

# preview without committing
claude statusline preview

The configurator is opinionated but flexible: pick the segments you want, skip the ones you do not. A reasonable default is context · model · tools · todo, with subagents only showing when something is running.

§04Caveats

  • Glyph rendering. Some terminals do not render the icons cleanly. Terminal.app on macOS is mostly fine, older Linux terminals less so. The text-only layout is the fallback.
  • Refresh cost. The HUD polls Claude Code state on a tick. The overhead is tiny but non-zero, which only matters on battery if you are watching milliseconds.
  • Information density. The bar is dense by design. If HUDs feel distracting, this is not the right tool.