Sub Meter Claude Code mod: Claude Code subscription usage in your footer

Sub Meter is a community mod by Miguel Ángel Durán (midudev), one of the plugins in his better-claude collection. It shows your Claude Code subscription usage at the bottom right of the prompt footer, on the same row as the permission mode. For each window it draws a bar, the percentage used, and the time until that window resets:

⏵⏵ auto mode on                                   5h ━━━━━━──── 58% ↻ 2h 10m

By default the meter takes turns between the 5-hour window and the weekly one every 8 seconds. The bar turns yellow from 75% and red from 90%. A window that has passed its reset time is drawn as empty. Every open session shares the newest reading, so a window you are not using catches up within 8 seconds.

Where the footer is short, the meter shrinks instead of wrapping: first the bar goes, then the reset time, and in a very narrow terminal the meter itself. It is also built to sit beside the author's Narrator mod, shrinking before that mod's switch does.

The install block above adds the author's marketplace and installs the plugin from it. Then restart Claude Code or run /reload-plugins. The meter appears after the first reading, which comes from $.session.usage() at session start or from the first response.

The plugin is one hooks module, hooks/register.tsx. Claude Code hands it the rate-limit windows through session.measure after each response, and it keeps the newest reading in $.store together with the time it was taken. This is from register.tsx:

async function remember ($: EngineInterface, found: Limit[]) {
  if (found.length === 0) return
  seenAt = await $.clock.now()
  await update($, limits, () => found)
  await $.store.set('limits', found)
  await $.store.set('at', seenAt) // after the limits, so a reader that sees the new time finds the new limits
}

A ui.render hook on the SessionMode component draws the meter and then whatever is beneath it (the mode labels, or another plugin's switch). A second ui.render hook on PromptHint rewrites the hint line without the two hidden parts and records its width, so the meter knows how much room it has. $.clock.every runs every 8 seconds to redraw the countdown, to pick up a newer reading from another session, and, in rotate mode, to switch windows.

Four options appear in /config:

• display: rotate (default), both (side by side, separated by |), session (only the 5-hour window) or week (only the weekly one).
• rotateSeconds: how long each window shows in rotate mode. The default is 8.
• hideCycleHint: drop (shift+tab to cycle) after the permission mode. On by default.
• hideInterruptHint: drop esc to interrupt while Claude works. On by default.

We read every file the plugin can execute or load: plugin.json, hooks/hooks.json, the one module hooks/register.tsx, the type declarations and the test file. The module imports only from claude-code. There is no package.json, no bundled or minified code and no binary. Here is what we found:

• Network: none. No fetch, sockets or HTTP calls.
• Processes: none. No $.process.run or shell strings.
• File writes: none of its own. It uses $.store (the plugin's own store) and plugin state; nothing under ~/.claude, settings.json, shell files or LaunchAgents.
• Background work: only $.clock.every timers inside the session. Nothing keeps running after Claude Code exits.
• Secrets and telemetry: it reads no environment variables, tokens or credential files, and has no telemetry.
• Prompt influence: it injects no text into prompts or tool results. It does change what the hint line displays (it removes two hints), which is described in the README and can be switched off.
• Gating hooks: none. It does not block or rewrite tool calls or prompts.
• License: MIT, with a LICENSE file in the repository root (Copyright 2026 Miguel Ángel Durán).

claude plugin validate reported no errors and no gating hooks. Its only finding is a non-blocking warning that the plugin has no icon, which does not affect use. The author's tests pass: 26 pass, 0 fail on Claude Code 2.1.307.

We loaded and tested it on Claude Code 2.1.307. It needs a Claude subscription that reports rate limits.

• Nothing shows in the footer: you are probably on API-key billing, or no response has reported limits yet. Send a prompt and wait a few seconds.
• The countdown looks stale: the meter redraws every 8 seconds and shows the last reading Claude Code measured.
• The meter disappears in a narrow terminal: this is by design. Widen the window, or hide the hints (the default) to give it more room.
• Only one window shows: the subscription reported only one, or display is set to session or week.