kibitzsh/kibitz

Kibitz – AI‑powered commentary for Claude & Codex

What it does

• Kibitz is a VS Code extension and a command‑line tool that watches active Claude or Codex sessions (the two large‑language‑model assistants from Anthropic). While you code, it streams a live “commentary” of what the model is doing and lets you send new prompts to any of the sessions you’re watching.
• All interaction happens through a small “composer” UI in VS Code or via a terminal prompt. You can pick an existing session (/2, /3 …) or start a fresh one on the current provider (/1).

Key features

• Live feed – real‑time updates from Claude/Codex appear as you type.
• Cross‑session dispatch – send a prompt to any watched session, or spin up a new Claude or Codex session on the fly.
• Slash commands – /help, /pause, /resume, /clear, /focus, /model, /preset, /interval, /update and numeric shortcuts for targeting sessions.
• Provider‑aware – Kibitz knows whether you’re talking to Claude or Codex and routes prompts accordingly.
• Status events – every dispatch reports queued → started → sent → failed, so you always see what happened.

How you use it

1. Install – either add the Kibitz extension from the VS Code Marketplace or install the CLI via Homebrew (brew install kibitzsh/tap/kibitz) or npm (npm i -g @kibitzsh/kibitz).
2. Open a session – run the Claude or Codex CLI (e.g., claude or codex) and let Kibitz watch it.
3. Compose – in the VS Code panel or terminal, type a prompt. Prefix with /N (or N/) to select a specific session, or just type text to use the currently selected one.
4. Watch the commentary – Kibitz streams the model’s replies and shows explicit status updates for each send.

Who it’s for

• Developers who already use Claude or Codex for code‑generation and want a unified UI to monitor multiple sessions.
• Teams that need quick “dispatch” of prompts without opening separate terminals for each model.
• Anyone who prefers a VS Code‑centric workflow but also wants a CLI fallback.

Installation & platform support

• Works on macOS, Windows, and Linux (Linux is “best‑effort”).
• Requires Node 20+, npm 10+, VS Code 1.85+, and the provider CLI (claude/codex) to be installed and authenticated.

Development & release

• Built with TypeScript, packaged as a VS Code extension (.vsix) and a Node CLI.
• Release process automates publishing to the VS Code Marketplace, npm, Homebrew, and GitHub Releases, and even sends a daily download‑digest email.

Bottom line Kibitz stitches together Claude and Codex sessions into a single, interactive commentary pane, letting you steer multiple AI‑code assistants from one place. It’s a productivity‑focused tool rather than a new model or training framework, but it sits squarely in the AI‑assisted‑coding ecosystem.