claude-wrap

A client library for wrapping the Claude Code CLI window. Spawn claude headless (in an in-process PTY) or open a visible terminal window, mirror its output into a virtual screen, read parsed session state, subscribe to status changes, and send input — in-process or to out-of-process instances over a named pipe / loopback HTTP.

Windows-first. The headless PTY uses ConPTY; the windowed mode uses cmd.exe start. Other platforms work headlessly via node-pty (openWindow is ignored off Windows and falls back to headless).

Install

npm install claude-wrap

Requires Node ≥ 18 and the claude CLI on your PATH.

Native dependency: node-pty

This package depends on node-pty, a native (node-gyp) addon. Installation downloads a prebuilt binary when one matches your platform + Node ABI; otherwise it compiles from source and needs a C/C++ toolchain:

• Windows — the "Desktop development with C++" workload (Visual Studio Build Tools) and Python 3.
• macOS — Xcode Command Line Tools (xcode-select --install).
• Linux — build-essential (gcc/g++/make) and Python 3.

If npm install fails building node-pty, install the toolchain above and retry.

Quickstart — headless ask()

import { ClaudeManager } from "claude-wrap";

const manager = new ClaudeManager();
const instance = manager.spawn({ cwd: process.cwd() });

// Send a prompt and wait until Claude goes idle. Returns the parsed state.
const state = await instance.ask("List the files in this repo.");

// `ask` may return with a pending permission prompt — handle it if present.
if (state.permissionPrompt) {
  instance.approve(); // or instance.deny()
}

// Read what's on screen (full scrollback, trailing blanks trimmed).
const snap = instance.snapshot({ clean: true });
console.log(snap.lines.join("\n"));

await instance.shutdown();

Subscribe to events

instance.on("status:busy", () => console.log("working…"));
instance.on("status:idle", () => console.log("done"));
instance.on("permission:prompt", ({ prompt }) => console.log("needs:", prompt.title));
instance.on("tool:start", ({ tool, args }) => console.log("tool:", tool, args));
instance.on("todo:changed", ({ todoList }) => console.log("todos:", todoList));

All event names are in ALL_SESSION_EVENTS; payload types are keyed in SessionEvents.

Stream the display as it updates

Two push APIs let you follow the terminal live instead of polling snapshot(). Both are headless-only (in windowed mode the PTY runs in the wrapper process, so neither fires).

Raw bytes — onData(cb). The truest live stream: every PTY output chunk, verbatim, including ANSI escape codes. Best for piping to your own terminal / xterm renderer.

const stop = instance.onData((chunk) => process.stdout.write(chunk));
// …later: stop();  // unsubscribe

Rendered lines — screen:changed + snapshot(). Fires (undebounced) on every screen redraw and hands you a signal; pull the current clean lines in the handler. Best when you want parsed/renderable text rather than escape codes. (Unlike the debounced state:changed, this reflects cosmetic redraws too.)

instance.on("screen:changed", () => {
  const { lines } = instance.snapshot({ clean: true });
  render(lines);
});

Pick onData for a faithful byte-for-byte mirror; pick screen:changed when you only need "the visible text changed, give me the new lines".

Open a visible window (Windows)

const win = manager.spawn({
  cwd: "C:\\my\\project",
  label: "my-project",
  openWindow: true,   // visible cmd.exe window the user can type into
  enablePipe: true,   // control channel for snapshots / input
  enableHttp: true,   // loopback HTTP bridge
});

The window registers itself in an on-disk instance registry, so a separate process can discover and drive it:

import { listInstances, snapshot, write } from "claude-wrap";

const [entry] = listInstances();
if (entry) {
  const snap = await snapshot(entry.pipe, { clean: true });
  await write(entry.pipe, "hello\r");
}

Forward events out-of-process — EventSink

When a wrapper runs in another process you can't call .on() on it. Attach an EventSink to forward its events over a transport. The built-in WebSocketEventSink ships a generic JSON wire format:

{ kind: "hello", instance, pid, cwd, label?, httpPort? }
{ kind: "event", instance, event: <SessionEvents key>, payload }
{ kind: "exit",  instance, exitCode }

import { ClaudeManager, WebSocketEventSink } from "claude-wrap";

const manager = new ClaudeManager();
manager.spawn({
  cwd: process.cwd(),
  reportTo: "ws://127.0.0.1:8080", // builds a WebSocketEventSink internally
});

// …or attach one explicitly:
const inst = manager.spawn({ cwd: process.cwd() });
inst.attachSink(new WebSocketEventSink("ws://127.0.0.1:8080", { idleDebounceMs: 2500 }));

The wrapper binary reads the same URL from the --report-to flag or the CLAUDE_WRAP_REPORT_URL environment variable.

Bins

Bin	Purpose
claude-wrap	Launch a wrapped claude in a new terminal window
claude-wrap-run	The wrapper process (PTY + pipe + HTTP bridge)
claude-wrap-inject	CLI to snapshot/parse/drive a running instance over its pipe

Logging

Diagnostic logs are written to claude-wrap.log in the OS temp directory. Override the path with the CLAUDE_WRAP_LOG environment variable.

License

MIT © Alex Kaffetzakis