Show HN: Argus – VSCode debugger for Claude Code sessions

Posted by lydionfinance on Tuesday March 03, 2026 @12:07AM
from the show-hn dept.

I've been using Claude Code heavily and kept wondering "why did this session cost $2?" or "why did it read the same file 15 times?".

Argus is a VSCode extension that analyzes Claude Code sessions from the .claude directory and gives you:

- Step-by-step breakdown of what Claude did - Cost analysis (which tools burned the most tokens) - Performance insights (retry loops, duplicate reads, context pressure) - Token usage visualization (cache hits, compaction events) - Flow diagrams showing file dependencies

Extension: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=argus-cl...

It's basically a "time machine debugger" for your Claude Code sessions. You can click through each step, see tool inputs/outputs, and understand exactly what went wrong (or right).

Tech stack: TypeScript, React 19, Chart.js, Vite

Some interesting findings from my own sessions: - 40% of cost was from reading the same files repeatedly - Retry loops cost ~$0.15 per loop on average - Cache hit ratio varies wildly (10% to 80%)

Limitations: - Only works with local .claude directories (not remote sessions) - Session format is undocumented, might break in future - Analysis rules are heuristic-based

GitHub: https://github.com/yessGlory17/argus

Would love feedback, especially from other Claude Code users!

Re:Show HN: Argus – VSCode debugger for Claude Code sessions by jlongo78 on Tuesday March 03, 2026 @07:00AM (#47231161)

nice work on this. debugging agentic sessions is genuinely underserved territory - most people are still just squinting at raw terminal output and hoping for the best.

one thing worth considering: session continuity is often as painful as debugging. knowing what claude did is half the battle, being able to resume that context later without re-prompting everything from scratch is the othe rhalf. tools that nail both together tend to stick.

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