Limitbar

A tiny widget that lives inside the Windows 11 taskbar and shows how much of your AI plan limits you have used: Claude, Codex, Grok and Cursor out of the box, and any other provider, API or quota you add in a few lines of settings. It can also show your PC's CPU, memory, GPU, disk and network load.

Claude, Codex, Grok and Cursor built in, plus two custom sources: the GitHub API rate limit (http) and disk usage on C: (command).

Three Claude Code accounts, Codex, Grok and Cursor, and a system source (PC) with live CPU, memory and GPU load.

• Zero setup for Claude Code, Codex, Grok Build and Cursor Agent: it finds every signed-in CLI (and every Claude Code account) and shows its 5-hour, weekly or monthly windows.
• Any provider, as many as you want: point an http source at a JSON endpoint, run a script with a command source, or read a file another tool writes. No rebuilding, no plugins.
• Your PC's load too (optional): CPU, memory, GPU, disk and network as Task Manager's Processes tab shows them, updated every 2 seconds, with the busiest processes in the tooltip. Add { "provider": "system" }.
• Yours to style: labels, colours, which bars, used or remaining, fonts, sizes, thresholds, position. Settings reload as you save.
• Tiny: one 0.6 MB native exe (Rust, Win32, WinHTTP). No runtime, no browser engine. About 12 MB of private memory and no CPU between checks; about half a percent of one core with the PC load block on.
• Read-only with your sign-ins: never refreshes, writes or logs a token.

Hover a block for the account, plan, exact numbers, reset times and when it last updated. Click to refresh; right-click for provider pages, settings and Start with Windows.

Install

1. Download limitbar.exe from the latest release.
2. Put it somewhere permanent, for example %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\Limitbar\limitbar.exe, and run it.
3. Right-click the widget and check Start with Windows.

The exe is not code-signed, so SmartScreen may warn the first time: choose More info > Run anyway, or build it yourself (below).

Requirements: Windows 11 (the widget docks into the Windows 11 taskbar).

To stop it, right-click > Exit Limitbar (or run limitbar --exit). To uninstall, uncheck Start with Windows, exit, and delete the exe and the %APPDATA%\Limitbar and %LOCALAPPDATA%\Limitbar folders.

Build from source

Needs Rust with the MSVC toolchain and the Windows SDK.

git clone https://github.com/vsolano9/limitbar
cd limitbar
.\install.ps1             # build, install to %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\Limitbar, start, start with Windows
.\install.ps1 -NoStartup  # same, without the startup entry
.\install.ps1 -Exe .\limitbar.exe  # install a downloaded exe instead of building
.\install.ps1 -Uninstall  # stop and remove everything except your settings

Add your own providers

Right-click the widget > Edit settings… opens %APPDATA%\Limitbar\config.json (JSON with comments). Keep "auto" for the built-ins and add whatever else you want:

{
  "$schema": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/vsolano9/limitbar/main/limitbar.schema.json",
  "sources": [
    "auto",

    // Any JSON API: the key comes from Windows Credential Manager, the bar from the response.
    {
      "provider": "http", "name": "OpenRouter", "label": "OR",
      "url": "https://openrouter.ai/api/v1/credits",
      "vars": { "key": { "credential": "limitbar/openrouter" } },
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer ${key}" },
      "windows": [ { "key": "credits", "tag": "$", "used": "/data/total_usage", "limit": "/data/total_credits", "unit": "USD" } ]
    },

    // Any script that prints {"windows":[{"used":..,"limit":..}]}.
    { "provider": "command", "name": "Drive C", "label": "C:",
      "command": ["powershell", "-NoProfile", "-ExecutionPolicy", "Bypass", "-File", "%USERPROFILE%\\limitbar\\disk-space.ps1"] }
  ],
  "appearance": { "show": "remaining", "warn_at": 80 }
}

• docs/providers.md: the built-in providers, the http, command and file providers, the system provider for this PC's load, and ready-to-paste examples (GitHub API rate limit, OpenRouter credits, extra Claude accounts, disk space, …).
• docs/configuration.md: every setting, the appearance options and the command line.

Check a configuration without waiting for the widget:

limitbar --probe

Settings: C:\Users\me\AppData\Roaming\Limitbar\config.json
C1   Claude 1     ok     5h 4.0% (resets 4:30 PM, in 3h 17m) | wk 89.0% (resets Tue 9:00 PM, in 4d 7h) | plan Max 20x
CX   Codex        ok     wk 100.0% (resets Wed 5:51 AM, in 4d 16h) | plan Pro
GH   GitHub API   ok     api 0.1% (resets 2:13 PM, in 1h 00m) | srch 0.0% (resets 1:14 PM, in 1m)
PC   This PC      ok     cpu 48.7% | mem 78.0% (24.9 of 31.9 GB) | gpu 49.3%
                         cpu: qemu-system-x86_64-headless 13% · python (7) 8% · System 5%
                         mem: claude (8) 3.7 GB · RobloxStudioBeta 2.5 GB · qemu-system-x86_64-headless 873 MB
                         gpu: 3D engine
                         gpu: RobloxStudioBeta 32% · qemu-system-x86_64-headless 11%

How it works

• The widget is a layered child window of the taskbar (Shell_TrayWnd), so it hides with an auto-hiding taskbar and under full-screen apps, and re-attaches after Explorer restarts. It follows light/dark mode and per-monitor DPI, and docks next to the clock when the taskbar is left-aligned. Only the primary taskbar is used.
• Each source is a block of up to three bars; a bar turns amber at 75% and red at 90% (configurable). Values older than three check intervals fade.
• Every source is polled on its own interval (default 2 minutes), in parallel. Clicks refresh at most every 10 seconds. HTTP 429 pauses a source for at least five minutes.
• system sources are sampled on a thread of their own every 2 seconds and are never cached.
• Last values are cached in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Limitbar\state.json (no secrets), so the widget shows numbers immediately after a restart and an idle account keeps its last values, rolling a window to 0% when its reset time passes.

Privacy and security

Limitbar talks only to the endpoints of the sources you show. Built-in providers read the CLIs' stored sign-ins read-only; custom providers read secrets from environment variables, files, Windows Credential Manager or a command at request time. Tokens are never written, cached or logged, and --probe never prints tokens or account names. See SECURITY.md.

Limitbar is not affiliated with Anthropic, OpenAI, xAI, Anysphere or any other provider. The built-in providers use the same usage endpoints as the official CLIs and apps; some are undocumented and may change.

Contributing

Bug reports, provider definitions and pull requests are welcome; see CONTRIBUTING.md. New built-in providers are one Rust module each.

License

MIT