What is sidecar CLAUDE.md?

Project instructions for Claude Sidecar, a tool that runs separate conversations with different AI models and brings their results back into the main conversation.

Use it to choose different models for exploration, run side conversations in parallel, preserve session history, and fold findings back into Claude Code.

It helps keep lengthy investigations separate from the main task and supports parallel work while warning about file conflicts and outdated context.

How jrenaldi79/sidecar configures Claude Code

Reuse

Borrowing it

Nothing to install: this file belongs to jrenaldi79/sidecar. Take a copy, put it at the same path in your own repository, and replace the rules that are about this project with yours.

Copy the file

curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jrenaldi79/sidecar/main/CLAUDE.md

Clone the repo

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/jrenaldi79/sidecar

Made for: Claude Code.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

README.md

[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/jrenaldi79/sidecar/claude-md/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/instructions/jrenaldi79/sidecar/claude-md)

Your own site

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/instructions/jrenaldi79/sidecar/claude-md"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/jrenaldi79/sidecar/claude-md/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

Your own site · 80×15

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/instructions/jrenaldi79/sidecar/claude-md"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/jrenaldi79/sidecar/claude-md.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>

Per session 5,773 This file is loaded in full into every session.

When invoked 5,773 The same file — it is already loaded in full.

Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.

Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.

Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

Model	Per session	Once invoked
Fable 5.1	$0.05773	$0.05773
Opus 5.5	$0.02309	$0.02309
Sonnet 5.5	$0.01155	$0.01155
Haiku 4.5	$0.00577	$0.00577

Measured 1mo ago against content hash e23f42434cf5, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-10-07, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

sidecar CLAUDE.md scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 1mo ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

CLAUDE.md · 408 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 408 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

CLAUDE.md

This file provides guidance to Claude Code when working with code in this repository.

Project Overview

Claude Sidecar is a multi-model subagent tool that extends Claude Code with the ability to spawn parallel conversations with different LLMs (Gemini, GPT-4, o3, etc.) and fold the results back into the main context.

Core Features

Fork & Fold Workflow: Spawn specialized models for deep exploration, fold summaries back
Multi-Model Routing: Use the right model for the job (Gemini's large context, o3's reasoning, GPT-4's coding)
Clean Context: Isolate deep explorations to sidecars, keep main conversation focused
Async-Safe Operations: File conflict detection and context drift warnings
Session Persistence: Resume, continue, or read previous sidecar sessions

Key Value Proposition

Right model for the job - Route tasks to specialized models
Keep context clean - Isolate deep explorations
Work in parallel - Background execution with Ctrl+B
Safe async - Conflict and drift detection

Essential Commands

Development

npm start                    # Run sidecar CLI
npm run lint                 # Run ESLint

Testing

npm test                           # Unit tests (excludes *.integration.test.js)
npm run test:integration           # Integration tests only (real LLM, costs tokens)
npm run test:all                   # Unit + integration (used by pre-push)
npm test tests/context.test.js     # Single file (preferred during dev)
npm test -- --coverage             # Coverage report

Enforcement

node scripts/check-secrets.js        # Scan staged files for secrets
node scripts/check-file-sizes.js     # Check staged files against 300-line limit
node scripts/generate-docs.js        # Regenerate auto sections in CLAUDE.md
node scripts/generate-docs.js --check # Verify auto sections are current (CI mode)
node scripts/validate-docs.js        # Pre-commit: warn if CLAUDE.md may need update
node scripts/validate-docs.js --full # Full: compare CLAUDE.md against codebase
npm run validate-docs                # Alias for --full mode

Read the full file on GitHub · 408 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

1mo ago First seen · 408 lines · 5,773 tokens per session scan A e23f42434cf5

Subscribe to this mod's changes

sidecar CLAUDE.md is an instructions file published in the GitHub repository jrenaldi79/sidecar (22 stars, last pushed 6mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 5,773 tokens to every session, about $0.0231 per session on Opus 5.5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

Claude Code LLM cowork electron multi-model openrouter

vscode buildNext.instructions.md

Working notes and architecture documentation for the new esbuild-based build system in build/next. Use when making changes to the new build pipeline (transpile/bundle commands, NLS plugin, source-map handling, resource copying, or self-hosting watch tasks).

microsoft/vscode · 9,715 tokens

sidecar: Instructions file for Claude Code