Session Watcher

LLM context economics, in your terminal.

Session Watcher treats your prompt cache as inventory — it uses EOQ theory to measure whether the current context is still worth carrying, tracking restart pressure so you can decide when to hand off.

Documentation · npm · Paper · llms.txt

Quick Start · Install · How It Works · Context Buckets · Handoff · MCP Tools · Agents · Cite

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What it does

Session Watcher reads your Claude Code transcript in real time and answers one question: is this session still worth carrying?

Most context tools optimize how you consume tokens — Headroom compresses, /compact shrinks, RTK filters. Session Watcher tracks when the cost curve is drifting, giving you the data to decide. They compose: run any pruning strategy you like, SW measures the cost curve so you can decide when to hand off.

SW reads from the transcript, never writes to it. The dashboard and statusline are pure observers; MCP tools return data for you to act on. Metrics stay on your screen, not in the model's context window.

How it works

Your coding agent (Claude Code)
        │  writes session transcript
        ▼
┌──────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  Session Watcher (in-process MCP server)  │
│  ─────────────────────────────────────── │
│  fold.js     — tail JSONL, fold usage    │
│  measure.js  — B (context belief)        │
│  rate-lamp   — bill premium (br) + gate  │
│  server.js   — Express + SSE dashboard   │
│  statusline  — one-line shell client     │
└──────────────────────────────────────────┘
        │  dashboard  ·  statusline  ·  MCP
        ▼
   Your browser / terminal status bar

Core model: B = cache_read_input_tokens (your context inventory). g = ΔL − ΔB (growth gap). x = L / B (position on the EOQ cost curve). br = mf × pp (bill premium — the percentage you're overpaying relative to optimal).

Lamp thresholds: green (br < 10%), amber (10–24%), red (≥ 25%). See the paper for the full derivation — EOQ inventory theory mapped to LLM prompt caching.

Quick Start

Requires Node.js ≥ 22.16.

# Try without installing — self-contained demo
npx -y @nomadop/session-watcher demo

# Replay your own transcript
npx -y @nomadop/session-watcher replay ~/.claude/projects/<project>/<session>.jsonl

Opens a browser dashboard. The demo uses a pre-built anonymized session; replay uses your real transcript. Both are read-only — nothing is modified or uploaded.

Install

Plugin (recommended)

# 1. Add the marketplace (one-time)
claude plugin marketplace add nomadop/session-watcher

# 2. Install the plugin
claude plugin install session-watcher@session-watcher

Or from within a Claude Code session:

/plugin marketplace add nomadop/session-watcher
/plugin install session-watcher@session-watcher
/reload-plugins

This registers:

• MCP tools — available in every session
• SessionStart hook — auto-launches the dashboard server on each session

If you installed or updated in an already-running session, run /reload-plugins to activate.

Statusline

The plugin system does not yet support declaring a statusline. Add to your ~/.claude/settings.json:

{
  "statusLine": {
    "type": "command",
    "command": "<plugin-install-path>/dist/statusline.js"
  }
}

Find your plugin path with:

find ~/.claude/plugins/cache -path '*/session-watcher/*/dist/statusline.js' -print

Or check via claude plugin details session-watcher@session-watcher.

Note: the plugin cache path changes on version update. After updating, re-run the command above and update your statusline path.

One compact line:

Context Buckets

The bucket panel shows exactly which files, skills, and tools are consuming your context budget. Each path carries a token count — check or uncheck to preview how the restart cost changes. The U-curve ghost line updates in real time as you toggle.

Handoff

When it's time to restart, handoff preserves the state you want to keep. Run /sw-handoff to prepare a package — selected paths, working summary, next task. Then /clear, and in the fresh session run /sw-load to restore. Only what you chose is rebuilt — less ramp-up, less waste.

MCP Tools

Server lifecycle

Tool	Description
start_watcher	Start (or reuse) the dashboard server; returns its URL
stop_watcher	Stop the managed server
watcher_status	Report whether the server is running and its URL
rotate_session	Rotate to a new session ID

Handoff workflow

Tool	Description
get_bucket_summary	Return current context bucket structure (files, skills, tools) with metrics
get_turn_skeleton	Render the turns of the capture epoch, one block per turn, as the slots a note can fill
submit_turn_notes	Return the producing session's notes through the slots the skeleton defines
prepare_handoff	Persist selected paths + summary as a handoff package; returns a semantic token
load_handoff	Load a handoff by token, free-text search, or auto-match for the current project

Turn history

Read the history turns carried by the handoff loaded into the current session. All three resolve that lineage themselves and take no lineage identifier — without a loaded handoff there is nothing to read.

Tool	Description
turn_page	Page deeper into the history, newest first; a returned cursor proves more history remains, while its absence does not prove none does
turn_search	Find a literal that occurs verbatim in the transcripts — an identifier, a path, a quoted phrase
turn_locate	Find which turn ranges mention a remembered term, when the original wording is unknown

Tools return data for you to decide on — only handoff injects context back into the model, and only the paths you explicitly selected.

Agent support

Session Watcher is agent-agnostic. The measurement pipeline only needs cache_read_input_tokens from each turn — it doesn't care which agent produced the transcript.

Agent	Driver	Status
Claude Code	JSONL tail (native)	✅
OpenCode	adapter-ready	pending
OpenClaw	adapter-ready	pending
Hermes	adapter-ready	pending
Aider	adapter-ready	pending

Adding a new agent requires implementing one interface: extract cache_read_input_tokens from the agent's session transcript. See lib/extract.js for the Claude Code reference driver. PRs welcome.

Paper

Context Is Inventory: A Rent-or-Buy Model for Prompt-Cached LLM Sessions Longju Cheng (2026) · DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.21236704

The paper derives the full theoretical specification: EOQ→LLM mapping, the 41.4% movable-cost bound, the ski-rental restart strategy, and measurements on 1,016 real session transcripts. See paper/paper.pdf.

Uninstall

claude plugin uninstall session-watcher@session-watcher
# Remove state directory (optional):
rm -rf ~/.session-watcher

Test

npm test              # unit + integration (node:test)
npx playwright test   # E2E (requires running server)

Citation

@unpublished{cheng2026context,
  author = {Longju Cheng},
  title  = {Context Is Inventory: A Rent-or-Buy Model for Prompt-Cached LLM Sessions},
  year   = 2026,
  doi    = {10.5281/zenodo.21236704},
  url    = {https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21236704},
  note   = {Preprint}
}

Privacy

• No remote telemetry.
• Transcripts are read locally and never uploaded.
• Local aggregate usage and handoff records are stored under ~/.session-watcher.
• No transcript prose or file contents are stored in telemetry.
• Removing ~/.session-watcher deletes all local state.

License

MIT