cctape

A local proxy for Claude Code that archives every request and response, with a web UI for browsing sessions, searching transcripts, inspecting raw API traffic, tracking token usage and cost, and an MCP server for Claude to inspect past sessions.

Features

• Find any past conversation. Full-text search across every session you've ever run, with ranked results and highlighted snippets.
• See what Claude costs you. Token and dollar spend broken down by session, account, and model, plus a live chart of how close you are to your 5-hour and weekly rate limits.
• Let Claude search its own history. A built-in MCP server so the agent can look up what you discussed last week instead of re-deriving context you already paid for.

Quick start

Run cctape with uv:

uvx cctape

On first run, your browser opens to a setup page at http://127.0.0.1:5555/setup with the one env var you need to copy. After that, run claude as usual — sessions appear in the UI as they happen.

Pass --no-browser to skip the auto-open.

Configuration

Shell

Add to ~/.zshrc (or ~/.bashrc):

export ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=http://127.0.0.1:5555/proxy

Claude Code VS Code extension

Add to user settings:

"claudeCode.environmentVariables": [
    {"name": "ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL", "value": "http://127.0.0.1:5555/proxy"}
]

MCP server

Register the MCP server with the claude CLI so Claude Code can search its own archive:

claude mcp add --transport http cctape http://127.0.0.1:5555/mcp

This exposes search_transcripts and get_session_window to the agent.

Flags and environment variables

• --host / --port — bind address (defaults: 127.0.0.1, 5555)
• --no-browser — don't auto-open the browser on first run
• CCTAPE_DB — database path (default: ~/.cctape/cctape.db)

Running it as a service

cctape is a regular HTTP server; run it under whatever supervisor you like (launchd, systemd, tmux, etc.). Once it's up on 127.0.0.1:5555 and your ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL points at /proxy, it just stays out of the way.

Development

Clone the repo and run the frontend + backend separately during development.

Build the frontend once (output is served by the backend from backend/src/cctape/static/):

cd frontend && npm install && npm run build

Start the backend with reload:

cd backend && uv run uvicorn --reload --factory --port=5555 cctape:create_app

Open http://127.0.0.1:5555.

The frontend can also run on its own dev server with HMR:

cd frontend && npm run dev

Pre-commit hooks run ruff, pyright, pytest, eslint, and tsc.