Show HN: AI Usage – Native macOS Menu Bar for Claude Code and Codex Limits

Developer Burak Gön has released AI Usage, a free native macOS menu bar app that displays real-time Claude Code and Codex usage limits with 0.0% CPU between refreshes. The app reads local OAuth credentials and fetches quota data directly from provider endpoints, keeping tokens on the user's Mac and never logging or transmitting them. It requires macOS 26 or newer and is available as an open-source project on GitHub.

Claude Code and Codex limits, one click away. Native Liquid Glass. Measured at 0.0% CPU between scheduled refreshes. A real native menu bar popover — no Dock icon or persistent window. AI Usage shows the limits that matter and stays out of the way. No extra account, API key, local server, telemetry, usage history, or background log scanning. Open the DMG, drag AI Usage to Applications, and launch it. It appears in the menu bar rather than the Dock. macOS 26 or newer is required. Note Current public builds are ad-hoc signed because a Developer ID certificate is not available yet. If macOS blocks the first launch, right-click AI Usage in Applications and choose Open . Future updates are still protected by Sparkle's EdDSA signature. - Claude Code session, weekly, Sonnet, and Fable limits - Codex session, weekly, Spark, and Spark weekly limits - Remaining or used percentages, switchable directly in the panel - A selectable provider and session/weekly value directly in the menu bar - Configurable 1, 5, 15, 30, or 60-minute refresh and one-click manual refresh - Signed update checks at launch and daily, plus Check for Updates… - A direct Update button in the panel when a new version is available - Provider cards only for installed tools, with signed-out status kept visible - Native light and dark appearances with Liquid Glass - Launch at Login enabled by default and still user-controllable You need: - macOS 26 or newer - Xcode 27 or newer - Claude Code and/or Codex already signed in locally Then: git clone https://github.com/burakgon/ai-usage-menubar.git cd ai-usage-menubar ./scripts/install.sh The script builds a local Release version, installs it to ~/Applications/AI Usage.app , and opens it. AI Usage appears in the menu bar, not the Dock. To run without the installer, open AIUsage.xcodeproj in Xcode and run the AIUsage scheme. AI Usage reads the same local OAuth credentials already created by the claude and codex CLIs, then requests quota data directly from the providers' first-party endpoints. - Credentials stay on your Mac. - Tokens are never printed, logged, or sent anywhere else. - Temporary failures keep the last successful values in memory and mark them stale. - Nothing is cached across launches. API-key-only Codex authentication can't read ChatGPT subscription usage. CLAUDE CODE OAUTH TOKEN is intentionally ignored because setup tokens don't include the profile scope required by Claude's usage endpoint. The exact researched contracts are documented in docs/provider-contracts.md /burakgon/ai-usage-menubar/blob/main/docs/provider-contracts.md . The default Auto mode shows the provider with the highest used percentage for the selected period. You can independently choose Claude Code, Codex, or Auto; Session or Weekly; and whether numbers mean Used or Left. Left is the default number mode. The menu bar stays compact and shows only the selected percentage; its meaning remains visible in the panel. Raw percentages are shown exactly as reported by the provider. Only progress bar drawing is clamped to 0...100 . Remaining usage is bounded to 0...100 because a negative remaining percentage is not meaningful. Run the complete test suite: xcodebuild test \ -project AIUsage.xcodeproj \ -scheme AIUsage \ -destination 'platform=macOS' The app is SwiftUI and AppKit, with a small provider layer and an in-memory store. Its only runtime package dependency is Sparkle https://github.com/sparkle-project/Sparkle , used for signed over-the-air updates. Contributions are welcome. Please read CONTRIBUTING.md /burakgon/ai-usage-menubar/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md before opening a pull request. Release packaging and OTA feed maintenance are documented in docs/releasing.md /burakgon/ai-usage-menubar/blob/main/docs/releasing.md . Provider contracts and parts of the system-boundary implementation were adapted from OpenUsage https://github.com/robinebers/openusage , pinned to tag v0.7.6 / commit 5a2864f19a1c664f6a140ba06abad5596000af10 . See NOTICE /burakgon/ai-usage-menubar/blob/main/NOTICE for attribution. AI Usage is available under the MIT License /burakgon/ai-usage-menubar/blob/main/LICENSE . If AI Usage saves you a few clicks, please star the repository https://github.com/burakgon/ai-usage-menubar . It helps other Claude Code and Codex users find it.