Claude HUD: Live Context and Usage Status Line Plugin

Claude HUD by Jarrod Watts is a Claude Code plugin that shows what is happening in your session at a glance. It installs as a status line, so a compact display of model, project, git branch, context usage and rate limits stays visible below your input.

Checked 24 Oct 2026 against the repo README, plugin.json (version 0.13.0) and marketplace.json. MIT licensed.

Who it is for

Claude Code users who want to see context fill and subscription limits before they become a problem, and who run subagents or long todo lists.

Install

Inside Claude Code, from the README:

/plugin marketplace add jarrodwatts/claude-hud
/plugin install claude-hud
/reload-plugins
/claude-hud:setup

/claude-hud:setup points your status line at the HUD.

What it does

• Line 1: model, provider label when detected (Bedrock, Vertex and others), project path and git branch.
• Line 2: context used, colored green to yellow to red, plus subscriber rate limits and reset time.
• Optional lines: tool activity, running agents with their model, and todo progress, turned on with /claude-hud:configure.
• Many extra toggles, such as session cost, prompt cache expiry, cache hit rate, compaction count and effort level.

Pros

• Zero config to start, deep options later.
• Uses Claude Code’s own status line data, so numbers match what the CLI reports.
• Labels in English and Chinese.

Cons and caveats

• Updates are manual unless you enable auto-update.
• The tools, agents and todos lines read the session transcript, which is extra work per refresh.
• Replaces any status line you already have, such as ccstatusline.

Links

• Repo: jarrodwatts/claude-hud
• Docs: Claude Code status line
• Related: ccstatusline, Claude Code Usage Monitor, ccusage