claude-devtools: An X-Ray Machine for Claude Code

2026-02-19 | Product Hunt | Official Site | GitHub

30-Second Quick Judgment

What is it?: It reads the session logs in your local ~/.claude/ directory and visualizes all the details Claude Code hides in the terminal (file paths, tool calls, token consumption, diffs, subagent trees). It doesn't modify Claude Code; it's purely read-only.

Is it worth it?: If you use Claude Code daily, this is a must-install. It’s free, open-source, and zero-config. Open it to see exactly how many tokens you spent, which files were modified, and when your context was compacted. There's a reason it got 100k+ views on Reddit in 48 hours.

Three Questions That Matter

Is it for me?

Target Audience: Developers who use Claude Code (CLI) daily. Whether you're on Pro ($20/mo) or Max ($200/mo), if you've ever felt like you can't see what Claude Code is actually doing, this is for you.

Ask yourself:

• Do you use Claude Code?
• Have you ever wondered which specific files "Read 3 files" actually referred to?
• Have you ever been confused why your context bar suddenly jumped to 80%?

If you answered "yes" to any of these, you're the target user.

Use Cases:

• Debugging complex sessions to see Claude's decision-making logic.
• Tracking token consumption to see which operations are the most expensive.
• Managing multi-agent tasks to see the subagent execution tree and task flow.
• Viewing logs for Claude Code running on a remote SSH server.
• Note: If you only use Cursor/Copilot and not Claude Code, you don't need this.

Is it useful?

ROI Judgment: The cost is near zero (free + zero-config + 2-minute setup), and the benefits are immediate. This is one of those tools you won't want to uninstall.

Why will I love it?

The Highlights:

• Context Visualization: Finally see the token breakdown for CLAUDE.md, skills, @files, and tool outputs across 7 categories, turn by turn.
• Compaction Detection: When Claude Code quietly compresses the conversation, you can see the token delta and know exactly what was dropped.
• Subagent Execution Tree: Multi-agent logs are usually a mess in the terminal; here, they become expandable recursive cards with their own tool traces and costs.
• Teammate Message Visualization: Messages sent via SendMessage are detected and rendered as color-coded cards by name, making it easy to follow the team chat.

The "Wow" Moment:

"claude-devtools reading ~/.claude/ logs directly instead of wrapping the CLI means it works no matter how you ran the session. That alone puts it ahead of every GUI wrapper I have tried." -- Product Hunt User

Real User Feedback:

"Love this. Coding blind is the worst feeling. Congrats on shipping it." -- @theobar0 (X) "Dope for Claude power users." -- @SaidAitmbarek (X) "Right now I am guessing which tool call ate my context window... the 7-category token breakdown per turn would fix that fast." -- PH User

For Independent Developers

Tech Stack & Implementation

Built with Electron + Node.js + pnpm, using SSE for communication in standalone mode, and supports Docker. No AI models are used—it's pure log parsing.

The implementation is clever: Claude Code saves full JSON logs for every session in ~/.claude/. claude-devtools parses these, walks through every turn, and reconstructs the context injection chain—including CLAUDE.md (global/project/folder level), skill activation, @file references, tool I/O, extended thinking, team overhead, and user prompts.

The core is the token attribution engine, which estimates usage across 7 categories per turn, displayed in the Context Badge, Token Usage popup, and Session Context Panel. It includes syntax highlighting for file reads and inline diffs for edits.

Open Source & Business Model

100% open source with 677 stars and 66 forks on GitHub. Completely free with no paid plans. It saw 1,000+ downloads within 48 hours. While similar projects like Dev-Agent-Lens (proxy-based) or claude-code-otel exist, this approach is unique. Building this from scratch would take 1-2 person-months for the core and 3+ for the polish.

Big Tech Risk

This tool fills a gap left by Anthropic. If Anthropic decides to provide native tool outputs, token breakdowns, and session replays within Claude Code, the core value of claude-devtools diminishes. However, given Anthropic's recent trend toward simplifying CLI output (which created the need for this tool), the short-term risk is low. It’s more likely to be acquired or used as a reference by Anthropic.

Notably, Claude Code supports OTEL metrics export, but the barrier to entry is high (requiring Grafana + Prometheus + Loki), suggesting Anthropic views observability as an enterprise feature, leaving individual developers behind.

For Product Managers

Pain Point Analysis

• The Problem: Recent Claude Code updates replaced detailed tool outputs with summaries like "Read 3 files"—hiding paths, content, and diffs. Context usage became a vague progress bar. The only alternative, --verbose, spits out thousands of lines of raw JSON.
• The Severity: High-frequency and critical. Heavy Claude Code users face this daily. The r/ClaudeCode Reddit community has 4,200+ weekly active contributors, showing a large and active user base.

User Persona

• Core User: Full-time developers using Claude Code daily.
• Secondary User: Team leads managing multi-agent tasks via Claude Code.
• Marginal User: Non-developers occasionally running scripts with Claude Code.

Feature Breakdown

Competitive Landscape

For Tech Bloggers

Founder Story

• Founder: matt (@matt_1218 / GitHub: matt1398)
• Motivation: Tired of "coding blind" with Claude Code—not seeing file paths, diffs, or where tokens went. After trying various GUI wrappers and finding they all injected prompts or changed behavior, he built a pure observer tool.
• Quote: "Clearly, we all hate coding blind!" -- matt, after seeing 100k views on his Reddit post.

Discussion Angles

• Is Anthropic hiding info?: Is the simplified output for UX, or to keep users from seeing the true cost? This is a great debate starter.
• Wrapper vs. Observer: A classic dev-tool debate. Should you wrap a tool to improve it, or stay out of the way and just observe? claude-devtools chose the latter.
• $200/month and no dashboard?: The existence of this tool highlights a gap in Anthropic's product. Users paying premium prices shouldn't need third-party tools for basic attribution.

Content Suggestions

• Headline Idea: "Claude Code costs you $200/month, but you have no idea what it's actually doing."
• Trend Opportunity: Claude Code is one of the hottest topics in the 2026 dev scene. Any tool enhancing it is bound to get traffic.

For Early Adopters

Getting Started

Completely free. Setup takes 2 minutes: Download the installer from GitHub Releases, and it will automatically find your ~/.claude/ folder. Docker users can run docker run -p 3456:3456. If your logs are in a custom location, just set the CLAUDE_DIR environment variable.

The Catch

1. Very New: Launched Feb 17, 2026. Long-term feedback is still coming in.
2. Latency: Standalone/Docker modes use SSE, which might have a slight delay compared to the Electron native file watcher.
3. Log Dependency: If Anthropic changes the log format, the tool will break until updated.

Security & Privacy

• Data: 100% local. Zero network calls.
• Privacy: No data is uploaded anywhere.
• Security: Open-source and auditable. Includes warnings if Claude Code accesses your .env files.

Conclusion

claude-devtools is the tool Anthropic should have built but didn't. It doesn't do anything flashy; it simply gives you back the information Claude Code hides. It’s free, open-source, zero-config, and doesn't mess with your workflow. This "quiet utility" approach is exactly what developers want.

Resources

• Official Website
• GitHub Repository
• Product Hunt
• Founder's Twitter

2026-02-19 | Trend-Tracker v7.3