A VS Code sidebar that mirrors the live TodoWrite task list from your active
Claude Code sessions — so you can
watch the plan unfold without keeping the terminal in focus.
It works entirely by tailing the transcript JSONL files Claude Code writes under
~/.claude/projects/. Nothing is sent anywhere; there are no runtime
dependencies and no configuration required to get started.
Claude Code only, for now. Despite the agent-agnostic name, the extension currently reads Claude Code transcripts exclusively. Support for other coding agents may come later.
Features
- Live todo list — the current
TodoWritesnapshot for each active session, re-rendered as the transcript changes. The in-progress item is highlighted. - Running subagents — when a session spawns subagents (via the Agent/Task tool), they appear under a collapsible Subagents · N running group beneath the session, each with its task, a live activity line (agent type, last tool, turns, age), and its own todos on the rare occasion it has them. Rows clear as the subagents finish.
- Every window, one place — sessions are read globally from
~/.claude/projects/, so a single panel shows every Claude Code session active across all your open VS Code windows and workspaces — not just this one — sorted most-recent-first, each with its own todos. - Session state at a glance — a spinner while Claude is working, a warning when a session looks like it's waiting on you (e.g. a permission prompt), and a check when it's idle.
- Context usage — the percentage of the model's context window consumed,
shown per session and in the status bar (matches Claude Code's
/context). - Status-bar widget — a compact
current/total · NN%readout for the session running in your current workspace, with a tooltip listing every active session.
Requirements
Claude Code installed and used at
least once, so transcripts exist under ~/.claude/projects/. The extension reads
those files read-only; it does not run or control Claude Code.
Installation
From the VS Code Marketplace: search for Coding Session Todos in the Extensions view, or install from the command line:
code --install-extension abslabs.coding-session-todos
Or build and install a local .vsix:
npm install
npm run package # produces coding-session-todos-<version>.vsix
code --install-extension coding-session-todos-<version>.vsix
Settings
| Setting | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
codingSessionTodos.activeSessionMinutes |
300 |
How recently a session must have been touched (in minutes) to appear in the panel. Default 300 (5 hours). Min 5, max 1440 (1 day). |
How it works
- Lists every transcript under
~/.claude/projects/whose modification time is within the active window, and reads only the trailing ~1 MB of each (transcripts routinely exceed 20 MB). - Scans that tail backward for the latest
TodoWritetool call and rendersinput.todos, plus the session's title, inferred state, and context usage. - Reads any subagents a session spawned from the
<sessionId>/subagents/sidecar transcripts Claude Code writes, and shows the ones still running. - The workspace folder is matched against the
cwdrecorded inside each transcript, not guessed from the folder name (Claude Code's encoding has shifted across versions). - Re-reads on file changes (debounced) and re-scans when sessions start, stop, or age out.
Privacy
Everything stays local. The extension only reads transcript files already on your machine and makes no network requests.
Development
npm install # also wires up the pre-commit hook (typecheck + test)
npm run build # compile to out/
npm test # vitest
Press F5 in VS Code to launch an Extension Development Host with the extension
loaded. See AGENTS.md for architecture notes.