Claude Status Alignment

Claude Status Alignment

The statusline at ~/.claude/tools/ccusage-statusline.py estimates session/weekly usage from local ccusage data. Two things drift from Anthropic's real numbers:

1. Session reset time — ccusage starts the 5-hour clock at the first message in the transcript. The real window is server-side and starts later, so "⏱ Xh Ym left" can be tens of minutes off.
2. Token-limit calibration — the % used depends on SESSION_LIMIT_TOKENS / WEEKLY_LIMIT_TOKENS, which are guesses. The real % comes from /usage.

This skill reads those real numbers from a screenshot and writes them to a sidecar config the statusline already knows how to read: ~/.claude/statusline-alignment.json. No Python editing required — the script picks up the sidecar automatically on its next refresh.

What the statusline reads from the sidecar

{
  "captured_at":          "<ISO8601, when the screenshot was taken>",
  "session_reset_at":     "<ISO8601 absolute time the current session resets>",
  "session_limit_tokens": <int, recalibrated 5h-window token budget>,
  "weekly_reset_at":      "<ISO8601, informational>",
  "weekly_limit_tokens":  <int, recalibrated weekly token budget>,
  "notes":                "<free text, optional>"
}

Behavior in the script (already implemented):

• session_reset_at overrides "⏱ X left" only while it is still in the future. Once it passes, the script falls back to ccusage's block end — so a stale sidecar never shows a wrong negative/expired time.
• session_limit_tokens / weekly_limit_tokens override the % denominators.
• Missing or corrupt sidecar → script silently uses its built-in defaults.

Procedure

Follow every step in order.

1. Read the screenshot

The user provides a screenshot of /usage (Claude Code) or claude.ai Settings → Usage. Extract:

• Current session: X% used and the reset label — this appears in two possible formats:
  • Absolute time: Resets H:MMam (Timezone) — e.g. Resets 1:40am (America/Los_Angeles)
  • Relative time: Resets in Y min or Resets in Yh Zm
• Weekly · All models: X% used and the reset label (e.g. Resets Jun 2 at 8am (America/Los_Angeles)).
• Weekly · Sonnet only (if shown): X% used.

If any value is unreadable, ask the user rather than guessing.

2. Get the system clock and timezone

date "+%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S%z"

Always run this — you need the current time regardless of which reset format the screenshot uses. If the screenshot is old, ask the user when it was taken and use that timestamp as "now" for the computation instead.

ISO8601 offset format: When writing any timestamp to the sidecar, always use the colon form for the UTC offset: -07:00 not -0700. Python's datetime.fromisoformat (3.6–3.10) rejects the no-colon form and the script will silently fall back to ccusage's block end time instead of the sidecar value.

3. Get current token counts from ccusage

# Current 5h block tokens (active session):
ccusage blocks --active --json
# Weekly tokens since the last reset (Tuesday 8AM Pacific). Compute the since
# date the same way the statusline does, then:
ccusage blocks --since YYYYMMDD --json   # sum totalTokens over non-gap blocks

Use the active block's totalTokens for the session, and the summed non-gap totalTokens since the last Tuesday reset for weekly. These are the denominators you'll recalibrate against the screenshot's percentages.

4. Compute the sidecar values

• session_reset_at — depends on the format shown in the screenshot:
  • Absolute time (Resets 1:40am (America/Los_Angeles)): parse directly to ISO8601 using the screenshot's timezone. Example: 2026-05-31T01:40:00-0700. Do not add anything to "now" — the time is already absolute.
  • Relative time (Resets in Y min / Resets in Yh Zm): add the duration to step-2 now. Example: now=21:06 + 34min → 2026-05-30T21:40:00-0700.
• session_limit_tokens = round(session_block_tokens / (session_pct / 100)).
  • If session_pct is 0 (rounds to 0% on the page), skip recalibration — keep the existing limit. Don't divide by zero.
• weekly_limit_tokens = round(weekly_tokens / (all_models_pct / 100)).
  • Same zero-guard. Use the All models percentage (the binding weekly cap), not Sonnet-only.
• weekly_reset_at = next occurrence of the weekly reset label (informational; the script still computes its own weekly countdown).

Show the user a small before/after table (old limit → new limit, old "time left" → new "time left") and the percentages you read, so they can sanity-check your screenshot reading before you write.

5. Write the sidecar

Write ~/.claude/statusline-alignment.json with the schema above. Preserve any keys you aren't changing by reading the existing file first (if present) and merging.

6. Verify

Run the statusline with a dummy hook payload and confirm the numbers now match the screenshot:

echo '{"transcript_path":"/nonexistent","model":{"id":"claude-sonnet-4-6"}}' \
  | python3 ~/.claude/tools/ccusage-statusline.py

Confirm ⏱ X left matches the session reset time from the screenshot (±1 min rounding) and the 🔋/📅 percentages match the screenshot. Report the verified output line to the user. Do not claim success without running this step.

Notes & limits

• The sidecar is a point-in-time snapshot. The session override expires when session_reset_at passes; re-run the skill with a fresh screenshot to realign.
• The weekly countdown shown in the statusline is still computed from the Tuesday-8AM-Pacific anchor in the script (subject to a known PST/PDT offset caveat in winter). Only the weekly percentage is recalibrated here.
• This skill never touches credentials or network APIs — it works purely from the screenshot the user supplies plus local ccusage data.