Your AI token usage, alive in the macOS menu bar.
You spent $2,513.67 on AI coding tools in the last four months. You don't know that, because you can't see it.
Tokcat is a native macOS menubar app that turns the tokscale CLI into a live, glanceable dashboard. The cat icon sits in your menu bar showing today's tokens or cost; click it and a frosted glass popover opens with a 2D / 3D contribution graph of every Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, OpenCode, Gemini, and Copilot session you've ever run.
brew tap handlecusion/tokcat
brew install --cask tokcatThat's it. The cask pulls in the tokscale formula automatically, so the CLI Tokcat depends on is installed in the same step. Open Tokcat from /Applications — the cat shows up in the menu bar, the Dock stays clean, and clicking the icon opens the dashboard.
The in-app updater checks for new releases on launch and again every 30 minutes; signed .tar.gz artifacts are verified against the embedded public key before install.
Prefer a one-off DMG? Grab
Tokcat_<version>_aarch64.dmgfrom Releases. You'll need to installtokscaleseparately:brew install junhoyeo/tokscale/tokscale. Tokcat detects a missing or outdated CLI on first launch and walks you through it.
| Glanceable | The menu bar title is configurable: today's tokens, today's cost, total tokens, total cost, or icon-only. |
| Native | Tauri 2 shell with macOS NSVisualEffectView vibrancy, system fonts, and prefers-color-scheme light/dark adaptation. |
| Quiet | Lives in the menu bar — no Dock icon, no spurious notifications, auto-hides when you click another app. |
| Honest | Numbers come from tokscale reading your local session logs. No telemetry, no cloud sync, no account required. |
| Multi-client | Whatever tokscale supports, Tokcat shows: Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, OpenCode, Gemini, Copilot, Amp, Droid, and more. |
| Cat | The menubar cat eats your tokens and spins faster the more it digests — your token throughput as a single, glanceable critter. |
Tokcat is a thin Tauri wrapper around the tokscale CLI. On a 3-minute interval (and on demand from the tray menu), the app shells out to:
tokscale graph --no-spinner [--year YYYY]The JSON output is cached in memory and pushed to the React frontend, which renders it as a 2D heatmap or a 3D tile graph powered by react-three-fiber. Per-client filters, summary cards, and the menu bar title all update from the same payload.
GitHub-style contribution grid. Click and hold for a date / cost / token tooltip.
Orthographic isometric projection with orbit controls and persistent camera state. The default framing auto-fits to the active tile cluster so populated days stay readable instead of getting lost in the empty future.
A native System Settings-styled panel for the menu-bar title, animated tray icon, launch-at-login, and one-click update check.
The mascot isn't decoration — it's the gauge. Tokcat's menubar cat eats whatever tokens your AI tools chew through and spins faster as it digests more. The hungrier your editor, the louder the cat. When you're idle, it dozes. When Claude Code is hammering through a refactor, it whirls. A glance at the menu bar and you know how fast your tokens are burning, without opening anything.
Pick between three styles in Settings: a wireframe cube, the long-loop cat, or the short-loop cat.
| Feature | Details |
|---|---|
| 2D / 3D contribution graph | GitHub-style heatmap or interactive 3D tile graph with orbit controls, persistent camera, and auto-fit-to-active-tiles framing. |
| Per-client filters | Toggle Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, OpenCode, Gemini, Copilot, etc. — driven by whatever tokscale discovers locally. |
| Live menu-bar title | Today's tokens, today's cost, total tokens, total cost, or icon-only. Updates every 3 minutes. |
| Animated tray icon | Optional cat (or wireframe cube) animation whose FPS scales with your real-time token velocity. |
| Native vibrancy + glassmorphism | Transparent window with macOS sidebar NSVisualEffectView; light/dark auto via prefers-color-scheme. |
| Menubar popover behavior | Chromeless window, drag region on the header, auto-hides when focus leaves the app. |
| Settings panel | macOS System Settings-styled preferences with switch toggles, sectioned groups, version info, and one-click update check. |
| First-run onboarding | If tokscale is missing or outdated, a friendly dialog explains how to install or upgrade with one command. |
| In-app updater | Signed releases via Tauri updater. Silent check on launch and every 30 minutes; manual check from Settings or the tray menu. |
| Launch at login | Tauri autostart plugin — opt-in via Settings. |
| Streaks & summaries | Longest / current streak, total tokens, total cost, daily average, best day. |
| No telemetry | Tokcat never makes a network request except the updater manifest. All data stays local. |
After installation, launch Tokcat from /Applications. Click the cat in the menu bar to open the dashboard. Right-click for the tray menu (Open, Settings…, Refresh Now, About, Check for Updates, Quit).
Keyboard & menu shortcuts
| Action | Shortcut |
|---|---|
| Open Settings | ⌘, (from tray menu) |
| Refresh now (bypass 3-min cache) | ⌘R (from tray menu) |
| Quit Tokcat | ⌘Q (from tray menu) |
Settings
| Setting | Effect |
|---|---|
| Menubar title | What the menu-bar text shows next to the icon. |
| Launch at login | Starts Tokcat automatically when you log in (Tauri autostart). |
| Animate tray icon | Cat or wireframe-cube animation that reflects token velocity. |
| About → Version | Currently installed Tokcat version. |
| About → Check Now | Same as the tray menu's "Check for Updates…", but in-pane. |
| Quit Tokcat | Exits the app. |
Troubleshooting
Dashboard shows tokscale CLI not found or env: node: No such file or directory
Tokcat shells out to tokscale, which is itself a Node-based CLI. Make sure both are installed and on your PATH:
which tokscale # /opt/homebrew/bin/tokscale
which node # /opt/homebrew/bin/node
tokscale graph --no-spinner | head -20If tokscale works in Terminal but Tokcat still complains, you're running an old build that doesn't ship the LaunchServices PATH augmentation. Update via Settings → About → Check Now, or brew upgrade --cask tokcat.
The menu-bar window vanishes when I click anywhere
That's intentional — Tokcat behaves like a native menubar popover. To keep it visible while interacting with another app, drag the window away from the menu bar by its header (anywhere outside the controls is a drag region).
brew install --cask tokcat says no formula found
Re-tap the source: brew tap handlecusion/tokcat && brew update.
git clone https://github.com/handlecusion/tokcat.git
cd tokcat
pnpm install # or: npm install
pnpm tauri:dev # opens the menubar app with Vite HMR on :4061
pnpm tauri:build # production .app + .dmg in src-tauri/target/release/bundleThe dev script runs the web frontend in a browser at http://localhost:4061 against a small Express + Vite server (server.js) that proxies tokscale graph — useful for iterating on the UI without rebuilding the Tauri shell.
Releasing a new version
# 1. bump version in package.json, src-tauri/tauri.conf.json, src-tauri/Cargo.toml
# 2. cargo check (refreshes Cargo.lock)
# 3. commit, push to origin/main
scripts/release.sh <version> "<release notes>"scripts/release.sh builds the production app and DMG, strips the embedded .VolumeIcon.icns (which would otherwise show up in Finder when hidden files are visible), generates the updater signature, writes latest.json, tags the release, and uploads everything via gh release create.
After the release lands, bump Casks/tokcat.rb in handlecusion/homebrew-tokcat so brew users see the new version.
| Repo | Role |
|---|---|
handlecusion/tokcat |
App source, GitHub Releases, in-app updater manifest |
handlecusion/homebrew-tokcat |
Homebrew tap (Casks/tokcat.rb) — what brew install --cask tokcat resolves |
junhoyeo/tokscale |
The upstream CLI Tokcat depends on for all data |
Tokcat is built on top of the tokscale CLI. Special thanks to @junhoyeo for creating and maintaining tokscale — Tokcat would not exist without it.
MIT. See LICENSE.
brew tap handlecusion/tokcat && brew install --cask tokcat
macOS 11+ · Apple Silicon · Tauri 2 · React / Vite · MIT