thedumbstuff

dumb thing no. 1

ContextWire

One window for every Claude Code console.

Every Claude Code session you have running, in one place. It tells you which one is waiting for you, shows what each prompt changed, and lets you answer from your phone. Each chat is the real claude CLI, so nothing you know stops working.

Tell me when I can download it Why does this exist?

Windows 10 and 11. macOS and Linux: coming soon.

We had eleven terminals open.

We could not tell which Claude was waiting for us. A sensible person would have closed a few. We built an app.

Run Claude Code in a few repos at once and this is your afternoon: clicking through windows to find the one that finished, the one stuck on a permission prompt, and wherever yesterday’s session lived.

Or watch us explain it.

We had eleven terminal windows open. So we built ContextWire for Claude Code: the first frame of the video Play the video: We had eleven terminal windows open. So we built ContextWire for Claude Code

It plays from YouTube when you press it. Until then nothing on this page comes from YouTube.

It tells you who needs you.

You stop checking. A session waiting on a permission prompt turns red, moves to the top and says what it wants. One that finished in the background turns bold with a badge.

ContextWire
Active
  • Needs you A permission, an answer or a plan to review. It says which.
  • Working Leave it alone. Go look at another one.
  • Done Finished while you were elsewhere, with an unread badge.

  • Every chat is a real claude console

    Slash commands, permission prompts, skills, your settings and CLAUDE.md work exactly as they do in a terminal.

  • A queue of who is waiting

    Sessions that need you come first, each with its reason: “wants to run: …”, “has a plan for you to review”.

  • It taps you on the shoulder

    A Windows toast and a taskbar flash. Click the toast and you’re in that session.

  • Shape as well as colour

    Every status has its own shape, so the list reads at a glance and without relying on red and green.

Yesterday’s session is one click away.

No more hunting for the folder and typing claude --resume.

  • Earlier sessions under every workspace, newest first. Click one and it resumes in the right folder.
  • Back after a restart. The sessions you had open come back when the app does.
  • Templates. Save a folder, prompt, mode and model, and start it again from the Run button.
  • Parallel tries. One prompt in two to four git worktrees, compared side by side, with Claude as judge.
Press Shift twice to find any session, repository, job or conversation.
The details drawer, here in the light theme.

See what Claude actually did.

“It changed some files” is not a status report.

  • A diff per prompt. Revert one file, or the whole turn.
  • Local history. A snapshot of your files before every prompt, kept apart from git. It brings back even a file that was never committed.
  • Tasks and subagents in a drawer, next to the files and commands of the current turn.
  • Two sessions, one file? You get a warning. Same when a turn makes too many tool calls or costs too much.
  • What it costs. A context gauge on every session, cost per session, and a daily budget alert.

The code, in the same window.

Press Ctrl+Shift+O, or Code in a session’s header, and the repository opens as a tree, the way an IDE shows a project. Read-only, with your own editor one click away.

Git that knows which session wrote it.

Three agents edited the repo this morning. The commit window sorts the changes by the session that made them, so each one goes in as its own commit.

Commit window: stage a file or a single hunk, commit, push, shelve.
Git view: log, branches and diffs. Unpushed commits stand out.

  • Which session wrote this line?

    A commit names the session and prompt behind it. Click a line number in a diff and it does the same for that line.

  • Every repository at a glance

    What is to push, to pull and uncommitted, for every repository under your workspaces. Commit, or commit and push, right there.

  • The awkward parts too

    Shelves, a three-pane merge conflict resolver, and editing the message of a commit you haven’t pushed yet.

  • A second pair of eyes

    Claude reviews what is new in a repository, on a click or on a schedule.

The docs, and the chores.

The things you alt-tab away for, brought into the same window.

  • Docs panel. The Markdown files of every repository your sessions work in: READMEs, notes, plans, skills. Rendered properly, with search.
  • It follows Claude. When a turn changes a file you have open, you see the new text.
  • Roadmaps. Every project that keeps a roadmap.yaml, folded to its name and a progress bar. Unfold one for what is in progress, what is next and what waits on you.
  • Scheduled agent jobs. Set a task up once. Claude runs it unattended on a schedule and reports back.
  • Find Action. Run any command by name, and change any shortcut you don’t like.
  • Compose. A proper text box for long messages, quoting what Claude said, and Windows voice typing.
Docs: Markdown read the way a code host shows it.

Answer it from the sofa.

Pair a phone and it shows the sessions on your computer. Read the conversation, allow or refuse what Claude asks, send a message. The phone talks to your computer only: there is no ContextWire server and no account.

The phone app's session list, with the session that needs you first
Every session, the needy one first.
A session on the phone: the conversation, and a card saying Claude wants to run a command, with the buttons Allow, Always allow and No
Allow, always allow, or no.
The phone app's More tab: Roadmaps, Usage, Docs, Activity, Search and notifications
Git, usage, docs and the rest.
Answer Claude Code from your phone: the first frame of the video Play the video: Answer Claude Code from your phone

see it move. Allowing a command from the sofa, in under a minute. It plays from YouTube when you press it.

  • Whoever answers first wins

    The console on the computer shows the same prompt as the phone. Answer on either.

  • You choose how much a phone may do

    View only reads. Reply also answers and sends messages. Full can start sessions, commit and push.

  • Nothing opened to the internet

    It runs over Tailscale, a private network between your own devices, which is free for personal use. Phone access is off until you switch it on.

  • A nudge when it matters

    A notification when a session needs you. It carries the session’s name and state, and the conversation only if you say so.

Hands stay on the keyboard.

Plain Ctrl keys are left to Claude. Every one of these can be changed.

Shift Shift
Search everywhere
CtrlShiftU
Jump to the session that needs you
CtrlShiftN
New session
CtrlShiftH
Resume a past session
CtrlShiftK
Commit window
CtrlShiftY
Local history
CtrlShiftA
Run any command by name
Ctrl1 to 9
Open the Nth active session

What stays on your machine

  • Your sessions. The claude CLI talks to Anthropic exactly as it does in a terminal. ContextWire adds nothing to that.
  • One request of its own: a check for a newer version, which carries nothing about you or your sessions.
  • Logs record events, folders and tool names. Never prompts, never conversation text.
  • Your Claude settings are left alone unless you ask it to track sessions started in plain terminals, and then it keeps a backup.

What it won’t do

  • Make your agents smarter. It only tells you which one has been waiting for you since lunch.
  • Mirror a terminal. A session lives in one console at a time. It replaces your terminal windows; “Adopt here” moves a session in.
  • Run on a Mac or Linux. Windows only, for now.
  • Stop being a window for managing your other windows. We are aware.

“Doesn’t the official Claude desktop app do this?” It also runs sessions side by side, in its own chat interface, and it cannot attach to a session running in a terminal. ContextWire keeps the real CLI as the console and reads status through Claude Code’s hooks.

Get it.

You’ll need the Claude Code CLI installed. ContextWire runs it; it doesn’t replace it.

30 days free on each computer, no card, no sign-up. After that, a licence: $20 a seat (₹1,699 in India, GST included), with a year of updates. Buy a licence. No refunds, so use the 30 days first; the licence terms say the rest.

Windows

Windows 10 and 11, 64-bit. Installs for you alone, no admin rights.

coming soon

macOS

coming soon

Linux

coming soon

Want it?

The download is on its way to this page. Take a tab so we know you’re waiting, or leave an email and we’ll write once, the day it’s here.

You’ll need Windows 10 or 11 and the Claude Code CLI. ContextWire runs it; it doesn’t replace it.

counting…

ContextWire is an independent project and is not affiliated with Anthropic. The pictures on this page show sample sessions.