JustinPerea

Notch Crab — Development skill for Claude Code

Development community

A pixel crab above your Claude Code prompt that acts out every hook, with bars for context and usage limits.

How to install Notch Crab

This entry records only its repository, not the path inside it, so there is no exact command to give. Open JustinPerea/notch-crab and copy the folder into ~/.claude/skills/, or the file into ~/.claude/agents/.

What Notch Crab does

A pixel crab above your Claude Code prompt that acts out every hook, with bars for context and usage limits. A Claude Code mod.

Alternatives in Development

Claude Dashboard — Comprehensive status line plugin for Claude Code with context usage, API rate limits, and cost tracking 258 ★
Presentation — A business question goes in 55 ★
Brow — Claude Code usage and rate limits in the MacBook notch 50 ★

README

notch-crab

A small pixel crab that lives above your Claude Code prompt. He acts out what Claude is doing: reading a file, running a test that fails, asking you for permission, finishing the job. Beside him, thin bars show your context window and your 5-hour and weekly usage limits.

![The crab above the prompt in the Claude Code desktop app, magnified beside the window, acting out a turn: three files read at once, a failing test, the fix and the pass](media/preview.gif)

More about how it was made: [justinperea.com/lab/notch-crab](https://justinperea.com/lab/notch-crab)

Install

You need Claude Code 2.1.287 or later in a terminal (`claude --version`). The Code tab in the desktop app runs its own copy of Claude Code, and that copy loads the mod too. Then, in your shell:

claude plugin marketplace add JustinPerea/notch-crab
claude plugin install notch-crab@notch-crab

Or type these inside a Claude Code session:

/plugin marketplace add JustinPerea/notch-crab
/plugin install notch-crab@notch-crab
/reload-plugins

**Desktop app:** the Code tab uses the same plugins as Claude Code in your terminal, so the two shell commands above install it there too. Sessions that are already open pick it up when their plugins reload.

notch-crab is a **mod**, a plugin that runs code inside Claude Code. Current Claude Code has mods on by default, both 2.1.287 in a terminal and the desktop app's own copy. Anthropic can still turn them off on its end. If that happens, the crab won't show.

What you get

The crab. He reacts to all 33 Claude Code hook events, each with its own little scene: a hard hat and a book for a Read, a lock when Claude needs your permission, a cloche when the turn is done. When nothing is happening he wanders and eventually naps.
The bars (CTX, 5H, 7D). CTX is this session's context, measured against the point where auto-compact kicks in, not against the full window. 5H and 7D are your 5-hour and weekly usage limits, each w