CTOP: Terminal UI to Monitor Claude Code Sessions, Zero Deps
CTOP is a terminal UI that lets you monitor all your running Claude Code and Codex sessions from a single pane. It's built with pure Node.js, has zero dependencies, makes no network calls, and works on macOS, Linux, and Windows.
What it shows per session
- CPU, memory, uptime, status
- Context window saturation bar (input / cache / output / free out of 200k)
- Token breakdown: input, output, cache creation, cache read
- Model, branch, session ID, service tier
- Cost estimates per session and aggregate
Other features
- Vim-style navigation (
hjkl,g/G) - Two view modes: list (table) and pane (card grid)
- Kill individual or all sessions (SIGTERM or SIGKILL)
- Sort by CPU, memory, context%; filter by branch/model/directory
- Live log tailing and full-text search across conversations
- Desktop notifications when sessions complete
- 5 color themes, plugin system
The author runs 6–15+ Claude and Codex sessions across different repos and built CTOP to track context burn, idle sessions, and memory usage. It pairs well with Agent View — Agent View handles dispatching and input needs, while CTOP fills in cost tracking, CPU/memory, context window bars, and historical stats.
Installation
npm i -g ctop-claudeOr via Homebrew:
brew tap aakashadesara/ctop && brew install ctop-claudeGitHub: github.com/aakashadesara/ctop — MIT licensed. PRs welcome (a recent adopter added performance improvements for 70+ sessions).
📖 Read the full source: r/ClaudeAI
👀 See Also
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Claudetop is an htop-like tool that shows real-time spending, cache efficiency, and model comparisons for Claude Code sessions. It provides slash commands like /claudetop:stats and smart alerts for cost milestones and efficiency issues.
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