CodexIsland

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Your AI usage limits, living in your notch.

CodexIsland is a native macOS overlay that turns the MacBook notch into a Dynamic-Island-style live activity for Claude Code and Codex usage limits. It sits quietly over the notch, peeks on hover with the 5-hour headline, and expands on click to show both providers' 5-hour and weekly windows with reset timing, chart controls, local-log cost estimates, and a year-at-a-glance usage history.

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The app is free, open source, unsigned, and local-first. It reads credentials already written by Claude Code / Claude Desktop and Codex, then calls only the providers' own usage endpoints.

What it does

• Two providers, four windows. Claude 5h + 7d and Codex 5h + 7d live in one panel.
• Notch-native overlay. The compact state is a black pill aligned to the physical notch, drawn with continuous (squircle) corners that match the hardware. On non-notched displays it falls back to a configurable menu-bar pill.
• Hover to peek. The silhouette widens just enough to show each visible provider's 5-hour percentage and reset headline, or keep those headlines visible at rest with Always show usage.
• Three swipeable screens. Click to expand, then swipe between Usage, Cost, and Overview. Cost estimates today and month-to-date spend and token throughput from local Claude Code, Codex CLI, and OpenCode session data. Overview renders the current year's activity as a contribution-style calendar.
• Used or remaining quota. Display provider windows as usage consumed or quota remaining.
• Approaching-limit alerts. Optional warning and critical thresholds tint the island and pulse the peek pill as a visible 5-hour window nears its limit.
• Codex reset credits. When reset credits are available, the Usage footer shows their count and expiration details.
• Configurable token counting. The TOKENS hero can sum every token type that crossed the wire (cache included, ccusage parity) or input + output only — the latter matches Anthropic's claude.ai stats panel.
• Click-through outside the island. The window ignores mouse events outside the visible silhouette so the menu bar and apps underneath still work.
• Five chart styles. Ring, Bar, Stepped, Numeric, and Sparkline. Pick the default in Settings or Command-click the expanded panel to cycle. Sparkline uses real readings recorded by CodexIsland during successful refreshes.
• On-demand refresh. Click synced Xs ago in the panel header to refetch immediately; the next scheduled poll re-arms from there.
• Cobalt glow + Low Power Mode. A soft glow around the island signals an in-flight refresh. Low Power Mode hides the steady-state glow so it only pulses during active work.
• Settings without a Dock icon. A quiet gear in the expanded panel opens a custom, resizable settings window with General, Display, and Providers tabs.
• English and Simplified Chinese. Follow the macOS language automatically or choose a language in Settings.
• Display selection. Auto-pick a notched display or pin the island to a specific connected display. Non-notched displays offer compact and notch-style widths.
• Configurable safe polling. Choose 5m, 15m, or 30m. The app does not offer sub-5-minute polling because Anthropic rate-limits the usage endpoint aggressively.
• Universal binary. build.sh compiles arm64 and x86_64 slices and merges them with lipo, targeting macOS 13+.
• Auto-updates via Sparkle. The app checks the appcast attached to the latest GitHub Release in the background, then prompts before installing. Updates are signed with an EdDSA key — verifiable without involving Apple's signing infrastructure. Toggle off automatic checks in Settings if you'd rather pin a version.
• Native app privacy. No app telemetry, no crash reporting, no third-party app analytics, and no proxy service.

Install

Homebrew

brew install --cask ericjypark/tap/codexisland

The first invocation auto-taps ericjypark/homebrew-tap. The cask strips the Gatekeeper quarantine attribute automatically (CodexIsland is unsigned by Apple — Sparkle handles update verification independently).

Direct download

Download the current CodexIsland-X.Y.Z.dmg from the latest release, drag the app to /Applications, then run:

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/CodexIsland.app

Why is the dequarantine command necessary?

CodexIsland is unsigned because Apple charges $99/year for a Developer ID certificate, and this is a free open-source project. The command removes the macOS Gatekeeper quarantine attribute that triggers the "cannot be opened because Apple cannot check it for malicious software" warning. The source code is in this repository for audit.

If a sponsored Apple Developer ID becomes available via GitHub Sponsors, signed builds can follow.

I do not want to use Terminal. What do I do?

1. Drag CodexIsland.app to /Applications.
2. Try to open it. macOS will block it because the build is unsigned.
3. Open System Settings -> Privacy & Security.
4. Scroll to the bottom and find the blocked CodexIsland message.
5. Click Open Anyway, then re-launch the app.

First run

CodexIsland does not ask for passwords or API keys. It reads the auth state already created by the command-line tools or desktop apps you use.

For Codex:

• Sign in to Codex / ChatGPT CLI first.
• CodexIsland reads ~/.codex/auth.json.
• If the file or access token is missing, the panel shows no codex auth.

For Claude:

• Run claude once, or open Claude Desktop, so Claude credentials are populated.
• CodexIsland checks CLAUDE_CODE_OAUTH_TOKEN, then $CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR/.credentials.json (normally ~/.claude/.credentials.json), then the macOS Keychain item named Claude Code-credentials.
• Credential access is strictly read-only. CodexIsland never refreshes OAuth tokens or writes to Claude's credential store; run claude when an access token expires, or claude /login when the endpoint requires a newly scoped token.
• If none work, the panel shows auth required — run claude.

The first fetch starts at app launch so the panel usually has values ready by the first peek. Opening Settings also triggers a fresh fetch.

Using the app

• Hover the notch to peek at the current 5-hour usage.
• Click the island to expand the full panel.
• Swipe horizontally on the panel (or use the indicator dots) to move between Usage, Cost, and Overview.
• Move away to collapse it.
• Command-click the expanded panel to cycle chart styles on the active screen (Usage cycles Ring/Bar/Stepped/Numeric/Sparkline; Cost cycles USD/VALUE/TOKENS/TREND; Overview has one calendar view).
• Click synced Xs ago in the panel header to refetch immediately.
• Click the gear in the lower-left corner of the expanded panel to open Settings, or press ⌘,.
• Press ⌘Q while the pointer is over the island to quit. You can also quit from Settings.

Provider visibility is display-only. Hiding a provider removes that provider's logo and column from the island, but the app keeps the latest usage values in memory so showing it again does not require a reset.

Settings

Settings is a custom NSWindow, not the system Settings scene. The app still runs as an accessory app with no Dock icon and no menu bar.

• General: Launch at Login, 5m/15m/30m refresh interval, app language, Always show usage, Low Power Mode, configurable limit alerts, and Sparkle update controls.
• Display: used/remaining percentages, Usage and Cost visualization styles, target display, and island width on non-notched screens.
• Providers: Claude/Codex visibility and status, token-counting mode, and a manual refresh for local cost data.

Preferences are stored in UserDefaults under MacIsland.* keys (Sparkle manages its own SU* update keys, and Launch at Login uses SMAppService.mainApp). Refresh, display, and provider changes apply live; changing the app language offers to restart CodexIsland.

Build from source

Requires macOS 13+ and a Swift toolchain from Xcode / Command Line Tools.

git clone https://github.com/ericjypark/codex-island
cd codex-island
./build.sh
open build/CodexIsland.app

There is no Xcode project and no SwiftPM package. build.sh runs swiftc over Sources/**/*.swift, compiles arm64 and x86_64 slices, merges them with lipo, copies bundled resources, and writes Info.plist.

Smoke test the native app:

./scripts/run-tests.sh
./scripts/verify.sh

run-tests.sh compiles and runs the credential-resolution and notch-height test harnesses. verify.sh builds the app, launches the binary for one second, then kills it if it is still alive.

Release

Package a DMG:

npm install --global create-dmg
./release.sh

release.sh runs the native build, copies the .app to dist/, applies ad-hoc codesigning, creates dist/CodexIsland-X.Y.Z.dmg, signs it with Sparkle's EdDSA key when available, generates dist/appcast.xml, and prints the file size and SHA-256.

Pushing a v* tag triggers .github/workflows/release.yml on macos-15, builds the signed DMG and appcast, generates release notes from Conventional Commits, publishes both artifacts in a GitHub Release, and mirrors the cask to ericjypark/homebrew-tap when HOMEBREW_TAP_TOKEN is configured.

Casks/codexisland.rb is the Homebrew Cask template. Do not manually bump its version or SHA for normal releases; CI copies it to the tap and rewrites those fields from the tag and freshly built DMG.

Repository layout

.
├── Sources/
│   ├── App.swift
│   ├── Cost/                # Local-log cost + token aggregation
│   ├── Localization/        # Runtime localization helper
│   ├── Model/
│   ├── Theme/
│   ├── Update/              # Sparkle wrapper
│   ├── Usage/
│   ├── Views/
│   └── Window/
├── Resources/              # Icons, provider marks, localized strings
├── Assets/                 # README logo asset
├── Tests/                  # Bare-swiftc regression harnesses
├── docs/                   # Sparkle runbook, design specs
├── Casks/                  # Homebrew Cask template
├── scripts/                # Tests, native smoke test, Sparkle setup
├── build.sh                # Universal .app build
├── release.sh              # DMG packaging
└── VERSION

Privacy

Native app behavior:

• No app telemetry.
• No app analytics.
• No crash reporting.
• No proxy server.
• No credentials are stored by CodexIsland.
• Codex tokens are read locally from ~/.codex/auth.json.
• Claude tokens are read from CLAUDE_CODE_OAUTH_TOKEN, Claude's credentials file, or the macOS Keychain. CodexIsland never refreshes or writes them.
• Tokens leave the machine only as Authorization headers to chatgpt.com and api.anthropic.com.
• The Cost screen reads local Claude Code session logs from ~/.claude/projects/**/*.jsonl (and ~/.config/claude/..., plus any path in CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR), Codex session logs from ~/.codex/sessions/, and OpenCode data from ~/.local/share/opencode/. Aggregation happens entirely on-device — no log content is uploaded or shared anywhere.

The visitor badge at the top of this README is an external hits.sh image that counts badge requests. It is not bundled with or contacted by the native app.

The network surface is concentrated in Sources/Usage/UsageFetcher.swift. The local log readers live in Sources/Cost/.

Troubleshooting

Claude shows auth required — run claude. Run claude once in Terminal or open Claude Desktop so the credentials exist.

Claude shows token expired — run claude. Run claude so Claude Code can refresh its own token. CodexIsland intentionally does not refresh it.

Claude shows re-login: claude /login. The stored token is missing a scope now required by the usage endpoint. Run claude /login to mint a newly scoped token; refreshing the old token is not enough.

Codex shows no codex auth. Sign in to Codex / ChatGPT CLI and confirm ~/.codex/auth.json exists.

Codex shows auth expired — codex login. Run codex login to refresh the credentials in ~/.codex/auth.json.

The app shows stale values after an error. That is intentional. UsageStore keeps the previous good values when a refresh returns only errors, so a temporary 429 does not turn the panel into 0%.

Why can I not choose 30-second polling? Anthropic rate-limits /api/oauth/usage aggressively at the account level. The app exposes 5m, 15m, and 30m only.

Does it work without a notch? Yes. It falls back to a compact menu-bar pill; Settings can switch it to the wider notch-style spacing.

Does it support multiple monitors? Yes, with one island at a time. Auto mode prefers a notched display, then the main display. You can also pin the island to a connected display in Settings; if that display is unplugged, CodexIsland falls back to Auto.

Will the usage endpoints break? Probably at some point. Both provider endpoints are undocumented. If the panel starts showing parse errors or HTTP errors, open an issue with the response shape and redact tokens.

Why is there no Dock icon? CodexIsland is an accessory app. Use the gear in the expanded island to open Settings, and use Settings -> Quit to exit.

Known limits

• Unsigned builds require dequarantine / Open Anyway.
• Claude and Codex usage endpoints are undocumented.
• Sparkline history contains only readings CodexIsland records while it is running; providers do not expose historical usage series.
• Multi-monitor setups use one island, pinned to or auto-selected for one display at a time.
• Accessibility is partial: VoiceOver labels exist, but a high-contrast variant is not implemented yet.

Acknowledgements

• codexbar by Peter Steinberger - auth-source archaeology for Claude credential resolution.
• claudecodeusage by Rich Hickson
  • the claude-code/2.1.121 User-Agent requirement on /api/oauth/usage.
• LaunchAtLogin-Modern by Sindre Sorhus - reference shape for SMAppService.mainApp.
• Emil Kowalski - animation timing and interaction discipline.

Changelog

See GitHub Releases for current release notes and CHANGELOG.md for curated milestone notes.

License

MIT - see LICENSE.