Context Bar

A mod that draws your context window as a stacked bar in the band above the prompt — one color per category, as /context breaks it down — with a legend underneath:

████████▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▒▒▒▒▒▒░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░
40%  System prompt 3%  System tools 7%  Messages 30%  Autocompact buffer 10%  Free space 50%

(Each run is drawn in its category's theme color — the same colors /context uses — solid █ for what's in use, ▒ for the compaction buffer, ░ for free space.)

It's live: Claude Code pushes a measurement after every turn, and the bar redraws from it. No polling, no timer, no token-count requests (the breakdown is the local summary estimate, the one /context starts from).

Install

/plugin marketplace add anthonybaldwin/cc-plugins
/plugin install context-bar@cc-plugins

Requires Claude Code v2.1.287+ (mods). It draws in the terminal and in the Desktop app's Code tab; in the VS Code chat panel and claude -p the hooks run but nothing is drawn.

Use

| | | |---|---| | /context-bar | Toggle the bar. The choice is remembered across sessions. Works mid-turn. | | ctrl+x ctrl+a | Claude Code's own collapse for the band above the prompt. |

The band is shared with other mods and with Claude Code's surveys; a survey takes precedence while it's up.

Why a mod, and why not a row in statusline-dashboard

The status line receives only the window's total. The per-category breakdown is a mods-API call ($.session.usage({ breakdown })), and the band above the prompt is the one place a plugin can draw a multi-row, theme-colored widget that updates on push. So the status line keeps its context gauge, and this is the detail view beside it. The two are independent — install either or both.

How it works

hooks/register.ts:

• session.start registers /context-bar, restores the saved toggle from $.store, and takes a first measurement.
• session.measure (fired after each main-thread turn) re-reads $.session.usage({ breakdown: 'summary' }) whenever the context unit moved, and writes the snapshot into $.state. Writing the state redraws the band — the render hook subscribes to it.
• classic.SessionStart for clear / resume / fork / compact measures again and restores the toggle (those reset $.state).
• ui.render on AbovePrompt lays the categories out across bodyColumns cells with largest-remainder rounding (so the bar is always exactly the band's width and every non-empty category stays visible), skips deferred tool rows like /context's grid does, and fits as many legend entries as the width allows.

Tests (claude plugin test plugins/context-bar) cover the layout arithmetic, drawing on both surfaces, the toggle round-trip through $.store, the /clear path, and the survey precedence.