Stop Context-Switching, Start Shipping Faster

We've all been there. You're deep in a coding session with Claude, but your OpenAI agent just finished something important. You minimize, hunt through your open windows, click the wrong tab, lose your place. Three minutes of friction later, you're back in the zone. Multiply that by 10 sessions a day, and you've lost hours of productive time.

This is the problem cctop solves elegantly.

What Makes cctop Different

Unlike traditional window managers, cctop is specifically built for AI-assisted development workflows. It understands the unique rhythm of working with multiple coding agents—where context matters as much as code.

The app monitors your AI sessions automatically and displays them in a clean menubar panel. When a session needs your attention, the status icon changes. One hotkey overlay, numbered badges appear on each session (1-9), and you're there with a single keystroke.

It's not flashy. It's not complex. It's just there, doing exactly one job well.

Broad Agent Coverage

cctop integrates with the major AI coding tools in the ecosystem:

• Claude Code (Anthropic's official CLI agent)
• Codex CLI (OpenAI's open-source agent)
• opencode (the SST framework agent)
• pi (Mario Zechner's agent)

On the editor and terminal side, it supports VS Code, Cursor, Windsurf, Zed, iTerm2, Warp, Terminal, and Ghostty. Whether you're jumping back to a specific pane in iTerm2 or refocusing your editor workspace, cctop handles it intelligently.

Privacy-First by Design

Here's something refreshing: cctop has zero network access. No analytics. No telemetry. Your session data lives in ~/.cctop/sessions/ as plain JSON that you can inspect yourself. If you care about what your tools are doing with your code, you'll appreciate this approach.

The performance footprint is similarly minimal—the plugin runs a tiny native binary on each event, writes a JSON file, and returns immediately. No measurable slowdown, no background cruft.

Features Built for Flow State

Navigate Mode is the killer feature. Hit your global hotkey, and numbered badges appear on every session card. Press 2, jump to session 2. That's it. No mouse required, no menu hunting.

The draggable panel persists its position across restarts, so your workflow stays consistent. The smart menubar status icon changes appearance based on your Mac's notch situation—a thoughtful touch for modern hardware.

A second tab tracks your session history, making it trivial to reopen past projects. And if you want some visual personality, there are four color schemes (Claude, Tokyo Night, Gruvbox, Nord) in both dark and light variants.

Zero Friction Installation

Download the .dmg, drag to /Applications, follow the in-app setup. The app auto-detects which tools you have installed and offers one-click plugin installation. Prefer Homebrew? brew install --cask st0012/cctop/cctop does the job.

Once installed, every session is automatically tracked. There's no per-project configuration. No environment variables to fiddle with. Install and forget.

Questions We'd Have Asked

The developers clearly thought through the friction points:

• Performance impact? None—they tested it.
• Does it phone home? No—it can't even reach the internet.
• Per-project setup required? Nope, automatic after plugin install.
• How are sessions named? By directory name by default, or use /rename in Claude Code for custom labels.

The Real Benefit

On the surface, cctop is a window navigation tool. But what it really does is eliminate context-switching friction from your AI-assisted development workflow. That might sound incremental, but if you're running multiple agents in parallel—testing different approaches, exploring alternatives, maintaining multiple branches of logic—those keystrokes add up.

It's the kind of tool that disappears into your workflow and only becomes visible when you realize you haven't lost focus in hours.

Getting Started

Head to cctop.app and grab the latest release. It's MIT licensed, signed and notarized by Apple, and requires macOS 13+. The app auto-updates via Sparkle, so you'll stay current without thinking about it.

If you're managing multiple AI coding sessions—whether you're exploring different agent approaches or running parallel implementations—spend five minutes setting this up. You'll recoup that time in the first week.