setup

usage-guard setup

Most people install usage-guard but never wire the one-time status-line shim, so the real plan quota never turns on and the guard stays silent. This skill does that wiring for them with as little friction as possible. Prefer doing the edit for the user (with a backup) over just printing instructions — the whole point is to remove the manual step.

Steps

1. Locate the installed status-line shim. It lives under the user's Claude plugins dir. Run this (works on macOS, Linux and Windows):

   node -e "const fs=require('fs'),p=require('path'),os=require('os');const root=p.join(os.homedir(),'.claude','plugins');let hit;(function w(d){let es;try{es=fs.readdirSync(d,{withFileTypes:true})}catch(e){return}for(const x of es){if(x.name==='node_modules'||x.name==='.git')continue;const f=p.join(d,x.name);if(x.isDirectory())w(f);else if(x.name==='usage-guard-statusline.mjs')hit=f}})(root);console.log(hit||'NOT_FOUND')"
   

   If it prints NOT_FOUND, tell the user to run /plugin install usage-guard@cc-guard first, then retry.

2. Open the user's settings. Path: ~/.claude/settings.json (Windows: %USERPROFILE%\.claude\settings.json). If it does not exist, create it as {}. Always back it up first (copy to settings.json.bak) before editing.

3. Wire the statusLine, preserving any existing one:

   • If there is NO existing statusLine, set it to run the shim directly:

     "statusLine": { "type": "command", "command": "node \"<ABSOLUTE_PATH_FROM_STEP_1>\"" }
     

   • If a statusLine.command already exists, do NOT clobber it — chain it through the env var so their line still renders after the snapshot:

     "statusLine": { "type": "command", "command": "USAGE_GUARD_STATUSLINE='<their existing command>' node \"<ABSOLUTE_PATH_FROM_STEP_1>\"" }
     

     (On Windows the env var is set in the wrapping shell — see TUTORIAL.md for the .cmd wrapper.)

4. Confirm in one line. Tell the user it's wired, and that after their next couple of Claude Code messages, /usage-guard:usage will start with a real Real plan quota block. Note that real quota only appears on Claude.ai Pro/Max sessions and only after the first API response; until then the weighted fallback is used.