Monitor Claude Code Token Usage & Cost in the Status Line (Before the AI Bubble Pops)

Anthropic's Claude Code now displays real-time token usage and cost in its terminal status line, helping users monitor their session and weekly limits. The feature, configured via a custom script, shows context window percentage, rate limit usage, and running dollar cost to prevent budget overruns. As AI token prices are currently subsidized by investor funding, the tool encourages spending awareness before costs rise.

I wanted to see my real dollar token cost and usage limits at a glance while I work with Claude Code. Here’s how I set it up. First, some background. Every message you send to Claude is measured in tokens roughly, chunks of text . If you’re on a paid plan like Max, Anthropic doesn’t charge per token. Instead it gives you a budget that refills on two timers: a 5-hour session limit and a weekly limit . Run out, and you have to wait for the next reset. That makes it easy to burn through your budget without realising. A heavy planning session eats far more tokens than lighter implementation work, so it helps to know where you stand before you hit a wall. For a while, the only way to check was to open a separate usage panel and switch back and forth. Now Claude Code can show it all right in the status bar https://code.claude.com/docs/en/statusline at the bottom of your terminal. There’s a longer-term reason to watch this, too. Right now AI tokens are cheap, practically subsidised, because these companies are spending investor money to win users. That won’t last forever. When the bubble pops and every prompt costs what it actually costs, it’s better to already be in the habit of watching what you spend. So let’s get that number on screen. Claude Code has a status line , a single line of text at the bottom of the screen. You point it at a small script of your own, and each time the conversation updates, Claude Code hands that script a bundle of live data as JSON about your session. Your script picks out the bits it cares about and prints one line back. Whatever it prints is what you see. Wire it up in ~/.claude/settings.json : { "statusLine": { "type": "command", "command": "bash /Users/you/.claude/statusline-command.sh", "padding": 0, "refreshInterval": 10 } } The data Claude Code hands your script carries everything you need: .context window.used percentage : how full the current context is .rate limits.five hour.used percentage : your 5-hour session limit .rate limits.seven day.used percentage : your weekly limit .cost.total cost usd : the running cost of this sessionRead them with jq and glue them into a string: input=$ cat used=$ echo "$input" | jq -r '.context window.used percentage' cost=$ echo "$input" | jq -r '.cost.total cost usd' printf "ctx:%.0f%% \$%.2f" "$used" "$cost" Read the docs on available data for status line https://code.claude.com/docs/en/statusline available-data to customise further. Session cost is only half the story. For per-day and per-week spend, incorporate ccusage https://github.com/ryoppippi/ccusage . ccusage reads local usage data from coding agent CLIs and turns it into daily, weekly, monthly, and session reports. ccusage daily --json --since 2026-06-24 Cache its output for a minute so you’re not re-running it on every keystroke, then sum the totals with jq . That’s it. Your context, limits, reset times, and running cost now sit at the bottom of the screen, updating as you work. When tokens finally get pricey, you won’t be flying blind. I’ve also added a cherry on top by colour coding the output. Green when there is enough time, yellow, and red when the session or tokens are about to expire. Here is the full script for /Users/you/.claude/statusline-command.sh : bash /bin/sh To install dependencies, use brew: brew install jq ccusage input=$ cat branch=$ git -C "$ echo "$input" | jq -r '.workspace.current dir' " --no-optional-locks rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD 2 /dev/null model=$ echo "$input" | jq -r '.model.display name' used=$ echo "$input" | jq -r '.context window.used percentage // empty' session=$ echo "$input" | jq -r '.rate limits.five hour.used percentage // empty' session reset=$ echo "$input" | jq -r '.rate limits.five hour.resets at // empty' weekly=$ echo "$input" | jq -r '.rate limits.seven day.used percentage // empty' weekly reset=$ echo "$input" | jq -r '.rate limits.seven day.resets at // empty' session cost=$ echo "$input" | jq -r '.cost.total cost usd // empty' ESC=$ printf '\033' GREEN="${ESC} 32m" YELLOW="${ESC} 33m" RED="${ESC} 31m" RESET="${ESC} 0m" session pct color="" if -n "$session" ; then if "$session" -lt 60 ; then session pct color="$GREEN" elif "$session" -le 90 ; then session pct color="$YELLOW" else session pct color="$RED" fi fi session reset at="" session reset in="" session time color="" if -n "$session reset" ; then session reset at=$ date -r "$session reset" +%H:%M 2 /dev/null now=$ date +%s remaining=$ session reset - now if "$remaining" -gt 0 ; then hours=$ remaining / 3600 mins=$ remaining % 3600 / 60 if "$hours" -gt 0 ; then session reset in="${hours}h${mins}m" else session reset in="${mins}m" fi if "$remaining" -gt 7200 ; then session time color="$GREEN" elif "$remaining" -ge 3600 ; then session time color="$YELLOW" else session time color="$RED" fi fi fi weekly days left="" if -n "$weekly reset" ; then now epoch=$ date +%s weekly remaining=$ weekly reset - now epoch if "$weekly remaining" -gt 0 ; then weekly days left=$ weekly remaining + 86399 / 86400 fi fi today cost="" week cost="" if -n "$weekly reset" ; then week start epoch=$ weekly reset - 7 24 3600 week start=$ date -r "$week start epoch" +%Y-%m-%d 2 /dev/null today date=$ date +%Y-%m-%d cache file="/tmp/statusline-ccusage-cache.json" cache max age=60 refresh cache=1 if -f "$cache file" ; then age=$ $ date +%s - $ stat -f %m "$cache file" 2 /dev/null || echo 0 "$age" -lt "$cache max age" && refresh cache=0 fi if "$refresh cache" = "1" ; then ccusage daily --json --since "$week start" "${cache file}.tmp" 2 /dev/null && mv "${cache file}.tmp" "$cache file" & fi if -f "$cache file" ; then today cost=$ jq -r --arg today "$today date" ' .daily | select .period == $today | .totalCost | add // empty' "$cache file" 2 /dev/null week cost=$ jq -r ' .daily .totalCost | add // empty' "$cache file" 2 /dev/null fi fi output="🇺🇦" -n "$branch" && output="$output $branch" -n "$model" && output="$output $model" -n "$used" && output="$output ctx:$ printf '%.0f' "$used" %" -n "$session" && output="$output 5h:${session pct color}$ printf '%.0f' "$session" %${RESET}" -n "$session reset at" && output="${output}→${session reset at}" -n "$session reset in" && output="${output} ${session time color} ${session reset in} ${RESET}" -n "$weekly" && output="$output 7d:$ printf '%.0f' "$weekly" %" -n "$weekly days left" && output="${output} ${weekly days left}d " -n "$session cost" && output="$output sess:\$$ printf '%.2f' "$session cost" " -n "$today cost" && output="$output day:\$$ printf '%.2f' "$today cost" " -n "$week cost" && output="$output wk:\$$ printf '%.2f' "$week cost" " printf "%s" "$output" Paste this prompt into Claude Code and it’ll do the whole thing, following the same steps from this article. Steps described are for a Mac, and Claude will try to adapt the script if you’re on a different OS. Set up a custom status line for Claude Code that shows my live token usage and cost. Use the full script exactly as is on this tutorial: https://www.yurikoval.com/blog/monitoring-claude-code-token-usage.html 1. Install the dependencies with Homebrew: jq and ccusage. 2. Create a shell script at ~/.claude/statusline-command.sh. It should read the JSON that Claude Code sends on stdin and print ONE status line containing: - the current git branch and the model display name - context window used percent .context window.used percentage - the 5-hour session limit used percent and its reset time .rate limits.five hour - the 7-day weekly limit used percent and days remaining .rate limits.seven day - the running session cost .cost.total cost usd - today's and this week's total cost from "ccusage daily --json", cached for about 60 seconds so it isn't re-run on every update Colour the session and weekly numbers green / yellow / red as they get close to the limit or reset. 3. Register the script in ~/.claude/settings.json under a "statusLine" block of type "command" that runs it with bash. 4. Make the script executable and show me the resulting status line. Happy vibe coding