Tail Claude

tail-claude

A terminal UI for reading Claude Code session JSONL files. Built with Go and [Bubble Tea](https://github.com/charmbracelet/bubbletea).

Reads session logs from `~/.claude/` and renders them as a scrollable conversation with expandable tool calls, token counts, and live tailing.

Requirements

• Go 1.25+
• A Nerd Font patched terminal font

Install

go install github.com/kylesnowschwartz/tail-claude@latest

Or build from source:

git clone git@github.com:kylesnowschwartz/tail-claude.git
cd tail-claude
go build -o tail-claude .

Update

tail-claude --update

Or manually:

go install github.com/kylesnowschwartz/tail-claude@latest

Usage

Run `tail-claude` to open the most recent session. If the session is stale (>12 hours), the session picker opens instead.

Pass a path directly to skip discovery:

tail-claude ~/.claude/projects/-Users-kyle-Code-foo/session.jsonl

CLI flags

tail-claude [flags] [session.jsonl]
  --dump          Print rendered output to stdout (no interactive TUI)
  --expand        Expand all messages (use with --dump)
  --width N       Set terminal width for --dump output (default 160, min 40)
  --update        Update to the latest version via go install
  -v, --version   Show version
  -h, --help      Show this help

Keybindings

`?` toggles keybind hints in any view. `Ctrl+z` suspends the TUI (resume with `fg`).

**List view**

Key	Action
j / k	Move cursor down / up
↑ / ↓	Scroll viewport 3 lines
J / Ctrl+d	Page down (half page)
K / Ctrl+u	Page up (half page)
G / g	Jump to last / first message
Tab	Toggle expand/collapse current message
e / c	Expand / collapse all Claude messages
Enter	Open detail view
d	Open debug log viewer
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