deixis

A visual surface for terminal Claude Code. The agent draws its plan to a browser canvas, every session reports its own status and cost, and a menu-bar glyph tells you which one needs you.

deixis — the class of pointing words: this, here, look.

Claude Code lives in a terminal — a linear text stream with no spatial view. Deixis gives it one: a persistent dashboard the agent curates itself (not a log scraper), plus passive per-session telemetry, plus a glance in your menu bar. macOS.

🔗 Live page →

menu bar:  ⚠ 1                 dashboard (localhost:3939)
──────────────────────         ┌──────────────────────────┐
✗ api      errored  2m  Bash   │ ● auth-refactor  working │
● deixis   working  9s  Edit   │   ✓ parse  ✓ load        │
○ claude   idle     20m        │   ⏳ write tests          │
──────────────────────         │   678k ctx · ◆ Progress… │
Open dashboard ↗               └──────────────────────────┘

What it does

Layer	What you get
Canvas	Four MCP tools let a session render Markdown, a live progress checklist, and a full document to a card that persists across turns — stop scrolling the transcript to find where it's at. The dashboard defaults to a single-column feed; a Pinterest masonry grid is opt-in via Settings.
Review	render_file opens a spec or plan the agent wants you to read in a full reading view — not a Markdown file you hunt down in an editor. It asks for the verdict in a plain message, so approval relays through Claude Code Remote Control and you can accept it from your phone.
Telemetry	A hook reports every session (working / waiting / errored / finished) with tokens and an equivalent API cost, read straight from the transcript. Unified onto one card per session.
Menu bar	A SwiftBar plugin: ◆ when all's calm, ⚠ when a session is waiting or errored. Click for the list — status, current tool, time-in-state, context size.

Quick start

# macOS · Node 20+ · pnpm
git clone https://github.com/alcides-collective/deixis
cd deixis && pnpm install && pnpm -r build

node packages/cli/dist/index.js init      # hub + MCP tools + telemetry hooks (launchd, :3939)
node packages/cli/dist/index.js menubar   # SwiftBar glyph (optional; needs SwiftBar)

Open http://localhost:3939, then start any Claude Code session — it appears automatically. Ask it to "track this on the deixis canvas" to populate progress and notes.

Undo with node packages/cli/dist/index.js uninstall (and … menubar --uninstall).

How it works

Claude Code session
  ├─ MCP shim ──┐
  └─ hook ──────┼──→  hub :3939  ──SSE──→  dashboard (React)
                            └──────────────→  menu bar (SwiftBar)

A long-running hub holds session state in memory and pushes updates over SSE. The MCP shim and the hook both report under Claude Code's real session id, so the agent's canvas and its telemetry land on the same card.

Architecture

pnpm monorepo, TypeScript throughout:

Package	Role
shared	Protocol + domain types (the single source of truth)
hub	Express + SSE server, in-memory store, telemetry (pricing, transcript, status)
shim	Per-session stdio MCP server — the four canvas tools (render_markdown, progress_set, progress_update, render_file)
hook	Tiny hook script that posts Claude Code events to the hub
web	React 19 + Tailwind v4 dashboard (feed / masonry layouts, reading overlay, Settings, light/dark)
menubar	SwiftBar plugin (renderer + notifications)
cli	deixis init / uninstall / status / menubar

Develop

pnpm -r build      # build all packages
pnpm -r test       # unit tests (hub, shim, hook, menubar, shared)
pnpm --filter @deixis/web dev   # dashboard with hot reload (proxies to :3939)

Notes & caveats

• macOS only — the hub auto-starts via launchd; the menu bar needs the free SwiftBar.
• Cost is a gauge, not a bill — on a Max/Pro subscription the $ figure is the equivalent pay-as-you-go API cost, priced from OpenRouter. It's deliberately kept off the menu bar.
• Fonts — the dashboard uses Overused Grotesk (with PP Supply Mono for monospace), which are proprietary. The installer copies your own licensed copies locally; the fonts are never committed or shipped.
• Local only — no auth, no remote/cloud, no telemetry leaves your machine.

License

No license chosen yet — all rights reserved by the author until one is added. Built with Claude Code. Not affiliated with Anthropic.