Footprints

A live file tree beside the chat that shows where Claude has been.

Use it

• /footprints opens a pane with the project's file tree: docked beside the transcript in fullscreen, above the prompt otherwise. Because you asked, it opens at any terminal width.
• As Claude works, names change color:
  • blue - read (Read, an @-mention; a folder Glob or Grep searched)
  • amber - edited; it shimmers while the edit is still running
  • green - edited, then committed with git commit
  • new - created this session
  • struck through - deleted
  • (shell) - changed by a Bash command rather than an edit tool
• The header counts it up: read 12 · edited 4 · new 1, plus deleted and committed once there are any. New, deleted and committed files are counted in edited too.
• Touched only: press t while the pane has the keys (click it, or ctrl+x tab), or type /footprints touched. Every folder Claude did not touch collapses, and untouched files fold into one + N untouched files line.
• Status line: edited 4 under the prompt, so you see activity with the pane closed.
• Untouched folders with more than 40 files start collapsed, showing their file count. Files Claude touched outside the project are listed under outside <folder>.
• /clear starts a clean trail.

Settings

None.

What it can touch

• Reads: file names and modification times only, never contents. Names come from git ls-files (or a folder listing outside git). Around a Bash call it also reads the modification time of each file git reports as changed, and for a Glob or Grep target, whether it is a folder.
• Runs (all read-only, no index lock):
  • git rev-parse --show-toplevel --show-prefix to find the repo
  • git ls-files -z --cached --others --exclude-standard when you open the pane, and after a commit or checkout while it is open
  • git --no-optional-locks status --porcelain=v2 ... before and after each Bash call, once the pane is open or Claude has edited something (the "after" is skipped when the call was read-only). If one run takes over 2 seconds or times out, shell tracking pauses for the rest of the session and the transcript says so once: Footprints: shell tracking paused, git status is slow in this repo. Read and edit tracking keep working.
• Writes: nothing on disk; its marks live in the session's state.
• Network: none. Model calls: none.

Limits

• Shell tracking starts once the pane is open or Claude has made its first edit, so a Bash change before either is not marked. In a repo where git status is slow (over 2 s), it pauses for the session.
• Shell changes need git. Outside a git repo the tree still works (a walk that skips node_modules, .git and a few cache folders, without .gitignore), but Bash changes are not marked.
• Shell attribution compares git status before and after the call plus file times, so: a branch switch that leaves git clean on both sides is not marked; a file you save in your own editor while a Bash command runs can be counted as changed by the shell; a background Bash command is checked when it returns, not when it finishes.
• Green needs a Bash command that runs git commit and moves HEAD. Commits you make in your own terminal are not seen.
• Files read through the shell (cat, rg) do not turn blue; only Read, Glob, Grep and @-mentions count. Native macOS and Linux builds of Claude Code have no Glob or Grep tools, so folder marks mostly come from builds that do.
• t works only while the pane holds the keyboard; from the prompt, use /footprints touched.
• Subagents' tool calls count too.
• Big repos: it keeps up to 20,000 file names and draws up to 400 rows (the rest is one "more" line).
• An edit still running when the mod reloads is not recorded.
• Tested with POSIX paths (macOS, Linux). Colors follow your theme's suggestion, warning and success.
• The pane opens only when you ask. If a surface cannot place panes, a one-line toast says why.

Built from a prompt

prompts/footprints.md