vistaclair

Agent inspector, control room, and transparent proxy for Claude Code.

npx vistaclair

I built this because I wanted to see what Claude Code actually sends to the LLM — the full requests, tool calls, hooks, subagent threads, token counts. The Inspector shows all of it on the wire, in real time, across sessions. From there it grew into a full control surface: multi-tab CLI sessions I can steer from a phone over a tunnel, proxy rules that rewrite or reroute requests to OpenAI/Gemini/DeepSeek/Ollama before they hit the API, and an integrated MCP server for custom tools. I use it daily.

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/3d82bb12-87e1-4e20-aa98-52d4f3512062

Getting started

Requires: Node.js 18+ and Claude Code CLI (authenticated).

npm install -g vistaclair
vistaclair

Or clone:

git clone https://github.com/hpfrei/vistaclair.git
cd vistaclair && npm install && npm start

Open http://localhost:3457 and log in with the auth token printed to the console.

[!TIP] Inspect an external Claude Code session:

ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=http://localhost:3456 claude -p "your prompt"

[!TIP] Custom port: npm start -- 8080 or DASHBOARD_PORT=8080 npm start

Environment variables

| Variable | Default | Description | |---|---|---| | AUTH_TOKEN | auto-generated | Dashboard auth token | | PROXY_PORT | 3456 | API proxy port (localhost only) | | DASHBOARD_PORT | 3457 | Web dashboard port (all interfaces) | | ANTHROPIC_TARGET_URL | https://api.anthropic.com | Upstream API URL | | MAX_HISTORY | 200 | Max interactions kept in memory |

[!WARNING] The dashboard binds to 0.0.0.0 for remote access. It is protected by the auth token, but do not expose it to untrusted networks without TLS/VPN.

What it does

Inspector — Full request/response capture across all sessions. System prompts, message history, tool definitions, tool call inputs/outputs (JSON tree), thinking blocks, SSE event stream, cURL export. Token breakdown (input, output, cache read/create, reasoning) and cost tracking per turn, per group, per session. Subagent tracking with color-coded parallel swimlane view. Hook events nested under the turns that triggered them. All interactions saved to disk as JSON.

CLI — Multi-tab Claude Code terminal in the browser. Per-session model routing, directory spawning, session save/resume. Paste screenshots from clipboard or drag-drop files directly into a session — works over a tunnel from any device. AskUserQuestion appears inline — answer from any browser and Claude continues.

Provider routing — Route through Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini, DeepSeek, Kimi, or Ollama. 40+ models pre-configured. The proxy translates Anthropic Messages API to the target format transparently.

Proxy rules — JavaScript middleware that intercepts every request. Swap models, strip tools, inject prompts, short-circuit responses. Describe in English, vistaclair generates the JS. Hot-reloaded, toggleable.

MCP tools — Define custom tools in the browser with typed parameters and a JS handler. Claude gets the capability instantly. Built-in: vista-AskUserQuestion (routes questions to dashboard UI), chat (sub-session delegation).

File manager — Browse, preview, and manage files on the remote machine. Monaco editor, multi-select, integrated shell.

Skills, agents, hooks — Create and edit .claude/ skills, agents, and hooks from the dashboard.

External API — REST and WebSocket interface for programmatic access.

Architecture

Two servers, one process:

| Server | Port | Binding | Purpose | |---|---|---|---| | Proxy | :3456 | 127.0.0.1 | Intercepts Claude API calls for inspection and routing | | Dashboard | :3457 | 0.0.0.0 | Web UI, REST API, WebSocket (auth-protected) |

Every claude process gets a unique instance ID in its base URL (http://localhost:3456/i/{id}), so concurrent sessions are fully isolated.

Free vs Pro

| Feature | Free | Pro | |---------|:----:|:---:| | Inspector, CLI, routing, rules, MCP, file manager, skills/agents/hooks | ✓ | ✓ | | Apps Platform | — | ✓ |

Get vistaclair Pro →

License

Apache 2.0 — see LICENSE. Copyright 2026 hpfreilabs.com

vistaclair Pro — the Apps Platform — is a separately licensed commercial add-on. Learn more →