CodexBar-Windows

Track AI coding-provider limits from Windows.

CodexBar-Windows is a Windows-focused usage tracker for AI coding providers. It ships a native Windows tray app that wraps the shared CLI/provider engine, plus a standalone CLI for scripts and terminal workflows.

Status

Current build status:

• Native Windows tray app opens a compact WPF tray popover shaped after the macOS menu-card flow.
• Usage includes a compact provider switcher inside the popover.
• Usage error cards include direct recovery actions for provider setup, CLI backend selection, and known provider dashboards.
• Usage, Settings, and More now stay inside the popover instead of opening classic secondary windows.
• Settings saves API keys for Windows-ready providers in Windows Credential Manager and injects them into CLI runs.
• Settings includes a CLI Backend panel for selecting CodexBarCLI.exe when testing from a dev folder or custom install.
• Settings includes a Manual Web Session panel that can import Edge, Chrome/Chromium, Brave, Vivaldi, Opera, or Firefox cookies for supported web-session providers, import Windsurf Chromium localStorage sessions, or accept a pasted Cookie header/session payload.
• More includes diagnostics, provider compatibility, and a GitHub release update check inside the popover.
• More also includes an About panel, and Usage can open the selected provider's dashboard when a known account/usage URL is available.
• Windows usage no longer fails early just because a provider has a web source; CLI/API/OAuth/manual-cookie fallbacks now run provider by provider.
• Codex and Claude interactive CLI probes use a packaged Windows ConPTY bridge when CodexBar-Windows.exe is beside CodexBarCLI.exe.
• Windows CLI build is wired into GitHub Actions.
• Release packaging verifies CodexBar-Windows.exe --smoke-test and CodexBar-Windows.exe --pty-bridge-smoke-test, plus CodexBarCLI.exe --version from the packaged folder.
• CI also smoke-tests CodexBarCLI.exe serve on Windows through the localhost /health endpoint.
• Windows release packaging is configured for an app .zip artifact containing CodexBar-Windows.exe, CodexBarCLI.exe, bundled Swift runtime DLLs, README_RUN.txt, install scripts, and VERSION.

Current limitations:

• CLI-side automatic browser cookie extraction is still stubbed on Windows; use the tray app's browser import or paste a Cookie header.
• Some macOS charts, provider icons, and animation details are still being translated into native Windows UI.

See docs/windows-port.md for the current implementation plan and compatibility notes.

Install

Windows release binaries are published from this repository:

https://github.com/chiragborse1/CodexBar-Windows/releases

Download the latest CodexBar-Windows-<version>-windows-x86_64.zip release asset, extract it, and run CodexBar-Windows.exe.

Click the Windows tray icon to open the compact usage popover. Use the provider switcher at the top of Usage to change scope quickly. Use Settings or More inside the popover for setup, raw CLI output, config actions, and the provider compatibility view.

First-time setup:

1. Open the tray popover and click Settings.
2. If the app cannot find CodexBarCLI.exe, use CLI Backend to browse to it.
3. Pick a provider in Provider Setup.
4. Choose a Windows-ready provider such as OpenRouter, OpenAI, Copilot, Claude, ElevenLabs, Moonshot, Kilo, or Venice.
5. Paste the provider API key, keep Enable provider after saving checked, and click Save API Key.
6. The popover focuses that provider and refreshes against it.

For web-session providers, use Settings > Manual Web Session, select the provider, then click the import button for the browser where you are signed in. For Windsurf this imports its Chromium localStorage session payload. If browser import cannot read a session, paste a Cookie header or supported session payload and click Save Cookie.

To install it into your user profile and create a Start Menu shortcut:

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\install.ps1 -Launch
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\install.ps1 -Launch -DesktopShortcut

Manual workflow artifacts can also be downloaded from the Release or CI GitHub Actions workflow. The Windows artifact is named codexbar-windows-x86_64; extracting it once gives you CodexBar-Windows.exe and CodexBarCLI.exe.

To build from source on Windows:

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\Windows\ui-dev.ps1
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\Windows\dev-run.ps1

PowerShell 7 also works if pwsh is installed.

ui-dev.ps1 is the fast UI loop: it builds only the WPF Windows app, opens it as a normal visible window, and uses demo provider data by default so Swift and provider credentials are not needed. dev-run.ps1 builds a full local package, stops any running dev copy, launches the fresh tray app, and verifies it stayed running. The runnable app folder is:

artifacts\codexbar-windows-x86_64

When the repo is opened through WSL as \\wsl.localhost\..., ui-dev.ps1 stages the Windows UI source into %LOCALAPPDATA%\CodexBar-Windows\ui-dev-source before building because MSBuild/desktop launch behavior is more reliable from a local Windows path. dev-run.ps1 and package-windows.ps1 also normalize WSL filesystem paths before resolving package locations.

Manual build commands:

swift build -c release --product CodexBarCLI
dotnet publish Windows\CodexBar.Windows\CodexBar.Windows.csproj -c Release -r win-x64 --self-contained false
pwsh .\Windows\package-windows.ps1 -ReleaseTag dev

CLI Examples

CodexBar-Windows.exe
CodexBar-Windows.exe --window
CodexBar-Windows.exe --window --demo
CodexBarCLI.exe --version
CodexBarCLI.exe usage --format json --pretty
CodexBarCLI.exe usage --format json --provider openrouter --pretty
CodexBarCLI.exe config providers
CodexBarCLI.exe config set-api-key --provider elevenlabs --stdin
CodexBarCLI.exe config set-cookie --provider cursor --stdin
CodexBarCLI.exe cost --provider claude --format json --pretty
CodexBarCLI.exe serve --port 8080 --refresh-interval 60

Use CodexBar-Windows.exe --window when testing if Windows hides the tray icon; it opens the same popover as a normal taskbar-visible window. Add --demo to show UI demo data without requiring the CLI backend.

API keys saved from the Windows app are stored in Windows Credential Manager. Provider toggles, manual Cookie headers, and advanced provider options are stored in %APPDATA%\CodexBar-Windows\config.json.

Roadmap

1. Keep the Windows tray app and CLI green in CI.
2. Continue matching the macOS menu-card and settings experience on Windows.
3. Move browser import into CLI-side automatic provider fallback where useful.
4. Add signed MSIX/WiX installer packaging.

Development

Useful commands:

pwsh .\Windows\ui-dev.ps1
pwsh .\Windows\ui-dev.ps1 -NoDemo
pwsh .\Windows\ui-dev.ps1 -UsePackage
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\Windows\ui-dev.ps1
pwsh .\Windows\dev-run.ps1
pwsh .\Windows\dev-run.ps1 -NoBuild
pwsh .\Windows\dev-run.ps1 -NoBuild -NoLaunch -Test
swift build -c release --product CodexBarCLI
dotnet publish Windows\CodexBar.Windows\CodexBar.Windows.csproj -c Release -r win-x64 --self-contained false
pwsh .\Windows\package-windows.ps1 -ReleaseTag dev
swift test

The shared Swift engine still contains platform gates for providers that depend on browser cookies, WebKit, or keychain behavior. Windows work should stay isolated behind those gates until native Windows implementations exist.

Attribution

CodexBar-Windows includes MIT-licensed code derived from the original CodexBar project. Required notices are kept in NOTICE and LICENSE.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.