ClaudeTray: A Battery Meter for Your
Claude Code Rate Limits

If you use Claude Code heavily, you've hit the rate limit wall. One minute you're in the middle of a complex refactor, the next you're staring at a cooldown timer wondering how much capacity you've burned through. Claude Code shows you the current status in the terminal, but if you're switching between projects or running multiple sessions, there's no persistent, at-a-glance indicator of where you stand.

ClaudeTray fixes that. It's a Windows system tray app that monitors your Claude Code usage and shows your rate limit status like a battery meter — always visible, color-coded, and one click away from a detailed breakdown.

Just want the download? The ClaudeTray tool page has the features, install steps, and FAQ in one place.

The inspiration for ClaudeTray came from Andrew Connell's statusline customization, which displays real-time token and quota consumption directly in the Claude Code terminal using custom scripts that parse session metadata after each turn. His approach — showing context window usage, 5-hour session limits, and 7-day rolling quotas right in the CLI — was the spark that made us think: why not take this further and put it in the system tray where you can see it no matter what you're doing?

The Tray Icon

The tray icon shows your 5-hour and 7-day rate limit percentages, color-coded:

• Green — plenty of capacity
• Yellow — getting warm
• Red — approaching or at the limit

You can see it at a glance without switching windows or checking the terminal.

Quick Popup

Click the tray icon and you get a compact popup with:

• Current usage bars (5-hour and 7-day windows)
• Active session info
• Recent projects you've worked in

It's the "am I about to hit a wall?" check that takes half a second.

Web Dashboard

Right-click the tray icon and open the full web dashboard for deeper stats:

• Usage history charts — see your consumption patterns over time
• Session browser — review past sessions, what you worked on, how much capacity each used
• Project launcher — jump back into recent projects
• Settings — configure refresh intervals, theme (dark/light), data retention

The dashboard runs locally on port 5199 (configurable) and stores everything in a local SQLite database. Nothing leaves your machine.

Auto-Detect

ClaudeTray reads the statusline debug JSON that Claude Code emits. No API keys to configure, no manual setup. If Claude Code is running with the statusline hook, ClaudeTray picks it up automatically.

Get ClaudeTray

ClaudeTray is free and open source.

GitHub: VAROIndustries/ClaudeTray

Install

Download ClaudeTray.exe from the latest release and run it. No installer needed.

Or from source:

git clone https://github.com/VAROIndustries/ClaudeTray.git
cd ClaudeTray
pip install -r requirements.txt
python -m claudetray

Requires Windows and Python 3.12+ (if running from source).

Run on Startup

Open Settings from the tray icon and enable Run on startup, or configure it in ~/.claudetray/settings.json.

Check out more free tools and apps at varo.industries/apps.