Problem solved

Developers using AI coding agents face challenges in monitoring resource consumption and controlling costs. Without a dedicated tool, it's difficult to track per-session token usage, context window limits, and associated expenses in real time. ctop solves this by offering a centralized, always-visible terminal dashboard that displays these critical metrics, enabling users to optimize agent performance, avoid unexpected API charges, and debug resource-intensive sessions efficiently.

Use cases

• Monitoring multiple Claude Code sessions to identify which one consumes excessive tokens or CPU time.
• Tracking context window usage to prevent overflows when working with large codebases.
• Estimating daily or per-task costs for AI-assisted coding to stay within budget.
• Debugging performance issues in Codex CLI by correlating memory spikes with specific operations.
• Comparing token efficiency between different agent configurations or prompting strategies.

Audience

• Developers
• ML Engineers
• Data Scientists

Pros

• Zero external dependencies, ensuring easy installation and minimal footprint.
• Real-time TUI with at-a-glance monitoring of CPU, memory, tokens, and costs.
• Cross-platform support for macOS, Linux, and Windows.
• Integrates directly with leading AI coding agents like Claude Code and Codex CLI.

Cons

• Limited to monitoring only supported AI agents (Claude Code, Codex CLI) currently.
• Terminal-only interface may not appeal to users who prefer graphical dashboards.
• Early-stage project with a small community and fewer advanced features compared to mature monitoring tools.