Glint brings Claude Code session status to the macOS menu bar
u/x3Syncara built Glint, a lightweight macOS menu bar app that surfaces live Claude Code session activity — including status, token usage, cost, and sub-agents — via a Dynamic Island-style overlay, floating pill, or Dock-side bar.
Score breakdown
Glint removes the need to manually alt-tab into terminal windows to check Claude Code session state, directly addressing the problem of sessions sitting blocked and unnoticed for extended periods.
- 01Glint is a macOS menu bar app that monitors Claude Code session activity without requiring terminal window switching.
- 02Displays live status: thinking, idle, or waiting for input — the core use case the author built it to solve.
- 03Shows per-turn tokens, cost, elapsed time, active sub-agents, and context window usage.
u/x3Syncara released Glint, a lightweight macOS menu bar app built to address a specific pain point: constantly switching into terminal windows to check whether a Claude Code session has finished or is blocked waiting for user input. The app surfaces session activity through three configurable display modes — a Dynamic Island-style overlay near the notch, a draggable floating pill that works over full-screen apps, and a Dock-side bar that occupies otherwise unused screen space.
When multiple sessions are open simultaneously, the session requiring attention is prioritized in the display while the others remain visible in an expanded view.
Glint shows live session status (thinking, idle, or waiting for input), per-turn token counts, cost, and elapsed time matching Claude Code's own status line, as well as current plans, active sub-agents, and context window usage. When multiple sessions are open simultaneously, the session requiring attention is prioritized in the display while the others remain visible in an expanded view. The app also tracks session and weekly usage limits with reset countdowns, and offers optional subtle sounds when a task finishes or needs input.
On the privacy and performance side, Glint reads the session logs Claude Code already writes to `~/.claude` entirely on-device. The only outbound network request is license validation. At idle, the app uses near-zero CPU even with hundreds of MB of session history, tailing only actively written transcripts and refreshing at most once per second.
Key facts
- 01Glint is a macOS menu bar app that monitors Claude Code session activity without requiring terminal window switching.
- 02Displays live status: thinking, idle, or waiting for input — the core use case the author built it to solve.
- 03Shows per-turn tokens, cost, elapsed time, active sub-agents, and context window usage.
- 04Supports three display modes: Dynamic Island-style overlay, draggable floating pill, and a Dock-side bar.
- 05Handles multiple simultaneous sessions, prioritizing the one needing attention.
- 06Reads session logs from `~/.claude` entirely on-device; no telemetry, no data leaves the Mac.
- 07Near-zero CPU usage at idle; tails only active transcripts and refreshes at most once per second.
Topics
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