[FEATURE] Desktop Code tab: a row of user-defined quick-command buttons above the prompt box

Preflight Checklist

• [x] I have searched existing requests and this feature hasn't been requested yet
• [x] This is a single feature request (not multiple features)

(The same request was made in #75044 and #73748; both were closed as not planned by the stale bot, not declined. This picks them up again, as the bot's closing note suggests.)

Problem Statement

In the desktop app's Code tab I send the same few commands many times a day: /compact, /clear, a custom command with fixed arguments. Each time means typing it out, or opening the / menu and scrolling to it. If I'm halfway through writing a prompt, I first have to cut my draft, send the command, and paste the draft back.

Keybindings (#9177) leave nothing on screen to show what is bound, and are hard to remember past two or three commands. Plugins can't help in the desktop app either: they get no way to draw anything there (details under Additional Context).

Proposed Solution

A small row of buttons next to the Code tab's prompt box, one per command the user picks:

• Clicking a button sends that command into the current session, exactly as if typed. Whatever was half-typed in the prompt box stays there.
• Each button holds any text (a built-in command, a custom command or skill, fixed arguments included), with an optional label.
• Optionally, a button can just fill the command into the box instead of sending it, for commands that need a few words added.
• Buttons are added, edited, removed and reordered from the row itself (or declared in settings, as #73748 proposed).
• The row can fold away when not wanted.

Alternative Solutions

I built this as a separate program to see whether it's worth having: quickbar, a small always-on-top bar for Windows that sits on Claude's window and types into the prompt box. It works, but it is a workaround: it finds the prompt box through Windows UI Automation and types into it, so any redesign of the app can break it, and it is Windows-only.

Other options: keybindings (nothing on screen shows what is bound) and the / menu (fine for rare commands, slow for frequent ones).

Priority

Medium - Would be very helpful

Feature Category

Other

Use Case Example

1. I've been working in one Code session for a while and the context is getting long.
2. I'm in the middle of typing the next instruction.
3. I click /compact in the row. The session compacts; my half-written instruction is still in the box.
4. Later I click /review (set to fill in only), add "focus on the error handling", and press Enter.

Additional Context

Related, all closed by the stale bot: #75044 (favorites bar above the chat input — the closest match), #73748 (configurable top-bar buttons), #79157 (pinned quick-action bar, closed as a duplicate of #75044), #75756 (pinning custom commands in the desktop app).

Why a plugin can't do this today: I tried building it as a Claude Code mod first. In the terminal, a button row drawn at AbovePrompt works. In the desktop app (desktop 2.9939.2.0, engine 2.1.281), every engine process logs session.start surface=null interactive=false and no ui.render ever arrives, so nothing a plugin draws shows up. If the desktop app implements the mod render protocol, this could also be done as a mod instead of built in — that side is under discussion in #91870.

What quickbar looks like, for reference (unofficial, third-party):

!quickbar's box for adding or editing a command

Happy to test builds or give more detail on how people use it.

---