ClaudeBar ✳

Claude Code on your MacBook's Touch Bar.

When a Claude Code session is running in your terminal, the Touch Bar switches into Claude mode:

┌─────┬────┬───────────────┬────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ esc │ ✳  │ ▲ 41k ▼ 2.3k  │   /code-review  /simplify   ⚡ skip perms  │
└─────┴────┴───────────────┴────────────────────────────────────────────┘

And when Claude asks for permission, the bar becomes the answer:

┌─────┬────┬──────────────────────────────┬────────────────────────────────┐
│ esc │ ✳  │ Claude needs your permission │ Allow Once │ Always Allow │ ✕  │
└─────┴────┴──────────────────────────────┴────────────────────────────────┘

When the session ends (or you switch away from your terminal), the bar goes back to normal.

Features

• Permission prompts on the bar — Allow Once / Always Allow / Reject, one tap each. Reject maps to Escape, just like in the terminal.
• Skill shortcuts — your most-used slash commands as buttons. Configure them in ~/.claudebar/config.json.
• Live usage — a running token counter for the active session, straight from the session transcript.
• ⚡ skip perms — types claude --dangerously-skip-permissions for you (without pressing Return — that part is on you, deliberately).
• esc never leaves — it's the only Esc this keyboard has, so it's always the leftmost button.
• Works with the Claude desktop app too — com.anthropic.claudefordesktop is in the default app list alongside the usual terminals.
• A tiny Claude — the ✳ starburst breathes on the bar while Claude works. That's the easter egg. Hi.

Requirements

• A MacBook Pro with a Touch Bar (2016–2020 models), macOS 12+
• Claude Code
• Xcode Command Line Tools (xcode-select --install) to build

Install

git clone https://github.com/TouchMyBar/claudebar
cd claudebar
make install

The installer:

1. builds ClaudeBar.app and copies it to ~/Applications
2. registers small Claude Code hooks in ~/.claude/settings.json (merged carefully — your existing hooks are untouched)
3. writes a starter config to ~/.claudebar/config.json

On first launch, macOS asks for Accessibility access. ClaudeBar needs it to press keys in your terminal when you tap a button — that's all it's used for. Approve it in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility.

How it works

claude (terminal) ──hooks──▶ claudebar-relay.sh ──unix socket──▶ ClaudeBar.app
                                                                     │
                                              NSTouchBar ◀───────────┤
                                              keystrokes ───────────▶ terminal

• Claude Code's official hooks fire on session start/end, permission notifications, and turn completion. A 10-line shell script relays the hook JSON to ClaudeBar over a unix socket. If ClaudeBar isn't running, the relay is a no-op — your sessions are never affected.
• The bar only takes over while a terminal app is frontmost and a session is alive. The list of terminal apps is configurable.
• Buttons work by sending keystrokes to the frontmost app (1 = allow once, 2 = always allow, Escape = reject), because Claude Code's prompts are keyboard-driven.

The fine print on APIs

The Touch Bar UI is built entirely with official AppKit NSTouchBar API. There is one exception, clearly contained in SystemModalTouchBar.swift: Apple never shipped a public way for a background app to present on the Touch Bar, so we use the same two stable-since-10.14 AppKit class methods every Touch Bar customizer (Pock, MTMR, …) uses. They're looked up at runtime and ClaudeBar simply does nothing if they ever disappear.

Configuration

~/.claudebar/config.json — every key is optional:

{
  "skills": ["/code-review", "/simplify", "/init"],
  "showUsage": true,
  "offerSkipPermissions": true,
  "terminalBundleIDs": ["com.apple.Terminal", "com.googlecode.iterm2"]
}

Restart ClaudeBar after editing (menu bar ✳ → Quit, then reopen).

Known quirks

• macOS draws a small ✕ at the left edge of any system-modal Touch Bar. Tapping it hides ClaudeBar until the next event brings it back.
• The Allow/Always Allow buttons press 1/2 in your terminal. If a particular prompt orders its options differently, glance at the screen before tapping — or just use the keyboard for that one.
• Usage counts tokens from the session transcript, including cache reads, so it climbs faster than "billed tokens" would.

Uninstall

rm -rf ~/Applications/ClaudeBar.app ~/.claudebar

Then remove the claudebar-relay.sh entries from the hooks section of ~/.claude/settings.json.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.