live-recap

A Claude Code plugin that draws a card above the prompt saying what Claude is working on, refreshed every few minutes while a turn runs. After the run ends, the last recap stays up (muted) until the next prompt.

╭─ tracking  running 6m · 2 in background · haiku · ~1m ago ──────────╮
│ Editing hooks/register.tsx to draw the live card. It shows the user
│ what Claude is doing while they look away.
╰──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

Also in this repo

• message-timestamps: prefixes each Claude reply with the local time it arrived, no model calls. Install with claude plugin install message-timestamps@live-recap.

Requirements

Function hooks are early access and off by default. Enable them before installing, or the plugin loads but never draws:

// ~/.claude/settings.json
{
  "env": {
    "CLAUDE_CODE_ENABLE_FUNCTION_HOOKS": "1"
  }
}

Or export CLAUDE_CODE_ENABLE_FUNCTION_HOOKS=1 in your shell profile. Restart Claude Code after setting it.

Install

claude plugin marketplace add benjaminmodayil/live-recap
claude plugin install live-recap@live-recap

Restart Claude Code (or run /reload-plugins).

Options

Set with claude plugin configure live-recap.

| Key | Default | Meaning | | ----------------- | ------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | intervalMinutes | 2 | Card first shows after a turn runs this long, then refreshes at the same interval | | source | haiku | haiku: small model reads recent activity (cheap). fork: session model reads full transcript (costs more) |

Side effects

• On session start (interactive only), turns off the built-in session recap (awaySummaryEnabled: false in user settings) since it draws over this card. This persists if the plugin is removed.
• Headless runs draw nothing and make no model calls.

Troubleshooting

• No card at all: check CLAUDE_CODE_ENABLE_FUNCTION_HOOKS is set (see Requirements), then claude plugin list shows live-recap loaded.
• Card missing on short turns: expected. The first card appears only after a turn runs intervalMinutes (default 2).
• Card hidden while a question dialog is open: the dialog takes over the area above the prompt; the card returns once the dialog closes.

Develop

.claude-plugin/types/ is written by Claude Code when it loads the plugin from a folder you own; it is gitignored. Load the plugin once to generate it.

tsc -p .                                  # typecheck
claude plugin validate --strict .         # manifest + hooks check
claude plugin test .                      # tests/*.test.ts (when available in your CLI build)