Claude Token Tracker: our own browser extension, from idea to the Chrome Web Store

Anyone can click together a prototype with AI. We wanted to prove that with AI we also finish a real product: through Google's review, publicly installable, and maintained after every update.

From a real itch to a real product

It started with a concrete problem we had ourselves: working intensively with Claude.ai and getting caught off guard by a quota limit every time. Claude.ai only shows that usage deep in the settings. The extension brings it to the front where you work: your session limit (5 hours) and your weekly limit, live in the interface, with colour coding and a warning before you hit the wall.

Built with AI, from architecture to release

The entire extension was built with Claude Code: the architecture, the TypeScript code, the esbuild build, the icons, right down to the store-listing copy. Not a throwaway prototype, but a maintained codebase. This is exactly what we mean by building with AI: not throwing something together faster, but finishing a product with AI and keeping it improving.

Privacy-first and through Google's review

The extension asks for no API key and makes no external calls whatsoever. All data stays on your own machine. It reads your quota usage straight from Claude.ai and stores it locally, nothing more. Precisely because of that it passed Google's in-depth review without hassle. For an AI-built product, that is the proof it does not just work in a demo, but meets the requirements of a real marketplace.

Maintained like a real product, at least weekly

This is not a project that stalled after launch. We actively keep the tracker up to date, in busy periods a new release weekly or more often, each time tested live against the real interface. Claude.ai changes constantly and the extension grows with it: when the sidebar was fully redesigned, new selectors followed, and when the heavy tokenizer slowed loading, we split it off so it only loads when needed. That maintenance rhythm is exactly what keeps an AI-built product standing in practice.

Two versions, three marketplaces

The tracker does not live in one place. We released it in two versions across three marketplaces: the Chrome extension in the Chrome Web Store, and an editor companion in the VS Code Marketplace plus, as a VSIX, on Open VSX for editors like Cursor and VSCodium. The VS Code version shows your quota right inside your editor, fed by the Chrome extension through a local bridge. On Open VSX alone the tracker has been installed over 1,400 times. All versions are laid out on the product page. One idea, cleanly rolled out across browser and editor.

Tools used