Claude Sessions Sidekick is a Windows tray utility designed to complement Anthropic's Claude Code CLI. This tool enhances productivity by providing developers and data scientists with a comprehensive session management solution.
Key Features:
Live Usage Tracking: Monitors 5-hour rolling blocks and weekly usage limits, offering insights into resource utilization.
Session Browser: Enables users to search through past sessions across projects, complete with notes and color tags for easy organization.
Project Quick Launchers: Equipped with global hotkeys for swift access to frequently used projects.
Reusable Prompt Library: Streamlines workflow by allowing quick retrieval and sending of prompts to Claude.
MCP Server Browser: Facilitates management and monitoring of servers across various projects.
Audience & Benefit:
Ideal for developers and data scientists utilizing Claude Code CLI, Claude Sessions Sidekick enhances efficiency by simplifying session management. It helps users optimize resource usage, quickly retrieve past work, and improve productivity through streamlined operations.
Install via winget for a seamless experience, ensuring the software integrates effortlessly into your workflow.
README
Claude Sessions Sidekick
> Tray sidekick for Claude Code — live usage tracking, session browser, quick launchers, and more.
Claude Code's CLI is great at writing code; it's less great at telling you how much of your 5-hour block is left, where you parked that one session from last Tuesday, or which /model your latest project actually uses. Sidekick is a tray-resident companion that fills those gaps — a persistent usage view, a searchable browser for every session you've ever had, per-session notes and color tags, project quick launchers with global hotkeys, and a prompt library.
Native WPF — single self-contained binary, ~50 MB RAM idle. No Electron, no background services, no telemetry.
Status: v1.0.0 — first public release. Tested on Windows 10/11 with .NET 10 runtime.
> Note: This is a hobby project built using vibe coding with Claude Code — most of the source is AI-assisted. It's been dogfooded by the author for a few months on real workloads, but please treat it as a useful utility rather than production-grade software. Bug reports liberally welcomed via GitHub Issues.
What it does
Live usage tracking
5-hour rolling block + weekly Sonnet/Opus utilization in your tray
Optional /compact recommendations when context gets tight
Quick "Resume" launches claude --resume {sessionId} in your shell of choice
Hover the In column to see the breakdown of fresh input vs. cache reads vs. cache writes — the headline number is dominated by cache reads, which bill at roughly 1/10 the rate
Quick launchers
Per-project entries with global hotkeys (low-level keyboard hook — works even when Claude Code isn't focused)
Optional --continue (resume last session) per entry
Per-entry model override (Sonnet 1M / Opus 1M / Haiku 200k) — forces --model X on every launch, overrides whatever the project's last /model choice would otherwise produce
Permission helper
Watches Claude Code permission additions; suggests generalizing overly-narrow rules (e.g. cd /specific/path && grep ... → broader pattern) — opt-in
Prompt library
Stash reusable prompts; one-click "Send to Claude" (clipboard + launch)
Claude config + MCP browser
View detected Claude Code installation, model defaults, MCP servers per project
Block/install MCP servers across projects
Working with saved sessions
The session list is meant to be a journal — a searchable, color-coded record of past Claude Code work — not a place to live in one ever-growing conversation. Notes, color tags, and favorites are here so you can recognize a session and decide what to do next; they're not arguments for keeping a 500-turn session alive forever.
When to resume, compact, or start fresh
Situation
Action
Same task, picking up within ~a day
Resume (double-click the session)
Sessions started on an older model line you want to migrate forward
Resume with model → (right-click a row) — picks the alias for that one launch
Same task, but the session feels bloated or /compact warnings are firing
/compact inside the session, then keep going
New task or new problem
Start fresh — don't pay for last week's context every turn
Long-running project spanning weeks
Periodic /compact + a short "status: done X, next Y" snapshot at the top of each new session
Why long sessions aren't free
Cache TTL is ~5 minutes. A session you come back to hours later pays full input on the next turn regardless of how active it was earlier — there's no "warm session" benefit.
Every turn re-processes the full history. A 100k-token session pays for 100k input on every reply, even for a one-line fix.
Compact ≠ free. Compacting trims to ~5–20k of summary; baseline per turn drops from ~100k+ to ~10–30k. Fresh starts at ~5–10k. On Opus that's roughly $0.05–0.10 per turn difference between compacted-vs-fresh, and an order of magnitude between bloated-vs-compacted.
The session browser exists so you can quickly find the right anchor for new work — scroll, recognize "ah, that's the migration thread from two weeks ago", grab the context you need (or just remind yourself of the next step), and then either resume briefly or open a fresh session with a one-line status snapshot. That's the workflow notes / colors / favorites are designed for.
Requirements
Windows 10 (build 19041 / May 2020 Update) or newer / Windows 11
Three install paths, pick the one that suits your environment:
Via winget (recommended for personal install)
winget install RafalZG.ClaudeSessionsSidekick
Installs silently to %LocalAppData%\ClaudeSessionsSidekick\. No SmartScreen prompt — winget verifies the installer hash against its manifest and runs the install in the context of the Microsoft-signed winget.exe.
> Pending acceptance into the public winget catalog. Until then, install from the in-repo manifest: winget install --manifest winget/1.0.0 after cloning. See winget/README.md.
Direct download from GitHub
Download ClaudeSessionsSidekick-win-Setup.exe from Releases
Run it. On first launch you may see a Windows SmartScreen warning ("Windows protected your PC") — click More info → Run anyway. This is expected for unsigned OSS; see Code signing policy below for the plan.
The app lives in your tray. Right-click → Settings → Quick Launch to add your projects.
Via Intune / Company Portal (corporate deployment)
For IT admins pushing the app to managed devices via Microsoft Intune:
Field
Value
Install command
ClaudeSessionsSidekick-win-Setup.exe --silent
Uninstall command
Read UninstallString from HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\ClaudeSessionsSidekick (registered by the installer)
Per-user install, no admin elevation required. Intune deployment bypasses SmartScreen entirely because the install runs through the Intune Management Extension, which is trusted by the managed device's policy.
Updates
The app checks for a new version on startup and shows a tray balloon when one is available. To install: right-click the tray icon → Check for updates…. The download + swap + restart is handled automatically (powered by Velopack).
Uninstall
Right-click the tray icon → Exit
Open Windows Settings → Apps → Installed apps, find Claude Sessions Sidekick, click Uninstall
This removes the application binary and the auto-update infrastructure under %LocalAppData%\ClaudeSessionsSidekick\. Your user data (settings, favorites, color tags, notes, prompt library) lives separately under %APPDATA%\ClaudeSessionsSidekick\ and is not removed by uninstall — so you can reinstall later without losing your customizations. For a fully clean removal, delete that folder manually after uninstall.
Build from source
Requires .NET 10 SDK + Windows.
git clone https://github.com/RafalZG/claude-sessions-sidekick.git
cd claude-sessions-sidekick
dotnet build ClaudeSessionsSidekick.sln
dotnet test ClaudeSessionsSidekick.sln
dotnet run --project ClaudeSessionsSidekick.csproj
Q: Does this read my Claude Code conversations?
Yes — it parses session JSONL files in %USERPROFILE%\.claude\projects\ for the browser/search features. Everything stays on your machine; nothing is sent anywhere.
Q: Why "Sidekick"?
The tool is a sidekick to Claude Code, not a replacement — it adds tray-resident utilities and a session navigator that the CLI itself doesn't provide.
Q: Will this work on macOS / Linux?
No — WPF is Windows-only. A cross-platform port would need a rewrite.
Q: Does this use Anthropic's API or my Claude Code subscription?
The widget piggybacks on your local Claude Code installation. It reads the same OAuth token Claude Code uses for the usage limits API, and never makes any other API calls.
Privacy: the app does not transmit any data to the author or any third party. The only outbound network call is to Anthropic's official Claude Code usage API using your own OAuth token. See PRIVACY.md for full details.
Code signing policy
Current status (May 2026): The Windows binary is unsigned. An application to the SignPath Foundation OSS program was declined as of 2026-05-21 — the project is too fresh for their public-visibility threshold. A re-application is planned once community adoption accumulates. In the meantime, the recommended install paths above (winget, Intune) bypass SmartScreen friction for almost every user; direct-download from GitHub Releases shows a one-time "Run anyway" prompt.
When code signing eventually lands, this is the policy it will follow:
Committer / Reviewer / Approver: Rafał Zygmunt (@RafalZG)
All source changes are made through this public repository. Releases are built from source by GitHub Actions (see .github/workflows/release.yml) and published as GitHub Releases. The signing step runs server-side at SignPath on the built artifact — the certificate's private key never leaves SignPath infrastructure and is not accessible to the project author.
Privacy
See PRIVACY.md. Claude Sessions Sidekick does not transmit user data to the project author. The only outbound network calls are to Anthropic's Claude Code usage API (using the user's own OAuth token) and to GitHub Releases for update checks and downloads.
More screenshots
Tray view modes (Mini / Compact / Full)
The widget cycles between three sizes via the tray menu. Mini is a slim
pill showing just the two utilization percentages; Compact adds the
progress bars; Full adds the per-session breakdown.
