Feature: expose context window usage programmatically
Resolved 💬 2 comments Opened May 28, 2026 by hannesnortje Closed Jun 1, 2026
Problem: Claude Code tracks context window usage internally and displays it via /context, but there is no programmatic way to access this data from outside the TUI.
Use Case: Multi-agent orchestration — monitoring 10+ Claude Code instances running in tmux panes. Currently the only way to check an agent context health is to capture the pane output after running /context and parse the ANSI text. Fragile and invasive.
Requested Feature — expose context window usage via ONE of:
- CLI flag: claude --context-usage returning JSON with model, tokens_used, tokens_total, percentage
- Session file: ~/.claude/sessions/<id>/context.json updated each turn
- Environment variable: CLAUDE_CONTEXT_USED / CLAUDE_CONTEXT_TOTAL
- JSON output mode: extend --output-format json to include context stats
Current Workaround: Parse TUI output via tmux capture-pane after sending /context — fragile, invasive, breaks agent flow.
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