Feature Request: Expose conversation context metrics to status line hooks
Summary
The status line hook API currently only exposes session-wide cumulative token metrics. It would be valuable to expose the same conversation-level context breakdown that the /context command displays.
Current Behavior
The status line hook receives this JSON payload:
{
"context_window": {
"total_input_tokens": number,
"total_output_tokens": number,
"context_window_size": number
}
}
These are session-wide cumulative values, not current conversation context.
Requested Behavior
Expose the detailed context breakdown that /context calculates internally:
{
"context_window": {
"total_input_tokens": number,
"total_output_tokens": number,
"context_window_size": number,
// NEW: Current conversation context metrics
"conversation": {
"total_tokens": number,
"system_prompt_tokens": number,
"system_tools_tokens": number,
"mcp_tools_tokens": number,
"custom_agents_tokens": number,
"memory_files_tokens": number,
"messages_tokens": number,
"free_space_tokens": number,
"autocompact_buffer_tokens": number
}
}
}
Use Case
Users who customize their status line want to display current conversation context usage (how close they are to hitting the context limit / autocompact) rather than cumulative session usage. This matches what /context shows:
⛁ ⛀ ⛁ ⛁ ⛁ ⛁ ⛁ ⛁ ⛁ ⛁ claude-opus-4-5-20251101 · 69k/200k tokens (34%)
The 69k/200k represents current conversation context, which is the actionable metric users care about for understanding when autocompact will trigger.
Additional Context
- The
/contextcommand already calculates and displays these metrics - The data exists internally; this request is to expose it via the hook API
- Would enable status line displays that mirror
/contextoutput
🤖 Generated with Claude Code
This issue has 4 comments on GitHub. Read the full discussion on GitHub ↗