Claude Overlay

Talk to Claude Code without ever leaving the app you're in — and let it actually see your screen.

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/f47fb39d-68f5-42ba-b2be-5442812838d8

Claude Overlay is a frameless, always-on-top chat window that floats over everything you do. Ask a question, and Claude looks at your real screen — every monitor — to answer. No copy-pasting error messages, no describing what you're staring at, no alt-tabbing to a browser. And because it runs the full Claude Code agent under the hood, it doesn't just chat — it can read, edit, and run things for you, right where you work. Point it at the slide deck, document, or spreadsheet you have open and it can change the file you're looking at — you never have to tell it where the file lives or even alt-tab away.

Best of all, it costs nothing extra: it drives your own claude CLI login, so it uses your existing Claude subscription — no API key, no metered billing.

⭐ If a screen-aware Claude that floats over your work sounds useful, star the repo — it helps other people find it.

✨ Why you'll want it

• 🔀 New in 1.25 — Codex mode. One click on the titlebar's Claude | Codex switch puts OpenAI's Codex behind the same window, on your own codex login, with Codex's own models, look and allowance — same screen-aware overlay, your pick of agent.
• 👁️ It sees what you see. Auto-captures each monitor on every message and labels primary vs. secondary — just ask "what's wrong here?" and it looks.
• 🪟 Never breaks your flow. Always-on-top and frameless; it collapses to a tiny draggable orb when you're not using it (with a real Windows taskbar button to click it back), and drops a ✓ on the orb when a reply finishes while it's tucked away — so you know a task is done without expanding it.
• 🏷️ Name each overlay; run several at once. Click the title to name an overlay for the task it's on — the name rides under the orb when collapsed, so a row of orbs (one per task) stays tellable apart at a glance.
• 🧠 A real agent that acts, not a chatbot. Full Claude Code (Opus 4.8) — it edits files, runs commands, and can even reach into the app on your screen (say, fix the wording on your open slide, or build a model in your open Excel), not just answer questions.
• 🔁 Conversations survive restarts. Relaunch the overlay (say, after an update) and it offers a one-click Resume last conversation — and if the connection to the CLI drops mid-session, it reconnects into the same conversation instead of losing your context.
• 💸 No API key, no extra cost. Runs on your existing Claude subscription.
• 🖼️ Screenshots, pasted images, and files. It grabs your screen automatically on every message, or paste any image with Ctrl+V to ask about it. Pick ⚙ → Attach files… to send a PDF, Word or PowerPoint file from this machine — PDFs go whole, pages and all; Word and PowerPoint have their text pulled out locally, so the words arrive and the charts and layout don't. If your screen hasn't changed since the last message, the duplicate isn't re-sent (Claude is told to keep using the one it already has) — follow-up questions answer measurably faster.
• ⚡ Live, polished UI. Responses stream token-by-token with clean tool-call chips, an in-place model switcher, and a context-usage meter.
• 🎨 Looks the part, crisp anywhere. Styled after the Claude desktop app, DPI-aware on HiDPI displays, resizable from any edge, with live Ctrl +/– zoom.
• 🔒 Local & private. Runs entirely on your machine against your own login.

Where a floating overlay wins

The CLI and the desktop app are perfect when you're already in a terminal or a chat window. The overlay earns its place by floating over whatever you're doing, seeing it, and acting on it — so it shines exactly where those can't:

• ✍️ Edit what's right in front of you. Don't just ask about the open document — ask it to change it. Fix a typo on the current slide, tighten a paragraph in your draft, fill a cell, or reword a heading. Because it's a full Claude Code agent with a shell, it can drive the app you already have open (e.g. via PowerShell/COM automation) to edit the file you're looking at — no file path needed. It works this out at run time rather than from a built-in integration, so it's not infallible: sanity-check important documents first (see the Security note near the end of this README).

• 📊 Build, not just edit. Ask for a spreadsheet and it builds the real thing in your open Excel — sourced assumptions, live formulas, a top-down calculation, even a low/base/high sensitivity, laid out like a banker's model. One sentence in the overlay, a working model in the sheet.

• 🖥️ Mid-presentation. Stay in full-screen slideshow. Summon the overlay to fact-check a number, translate a term, or field an audience question on the spot — then dismiss it without ever leaving the deck.
• 🌐 Reading in another language. On a foreign-language page, PDF, or slide, ask it to translate or explain what's on screen, in place — no copy-pasting into a separate translator tab.
• 📄 Skimming something long. "TL;DR this", "what does it say about X?" — about the article, whitepaper, or PDF you're looking at, without selecting or pasting a word.
• 🧩 Any GUI with no terminal. A cryptic error dialog, a settings panel, a BI dashboard, a spreadsheet formula — point your screen at it and ask. It works over apps that have no command line and nothing to copy.
• 🖥️🖥️ Across monitors. It captures every screen, so ask it to reconcile the spec on one monitor against the figure or table on the other.
• 🎥 On a call or screen-share. A discreet, always-on-top helper to look things up about what's being shown — without alt-tabbing away from the meeting.

How it works

Overlay (Tkinter UI)  →  claude-agent-sdk  →  spawns the `claude` CLI  →  Anthropic
        ▲ screenshots (Pillow ImageGrab, one image per monitor)

• UI — Tkinter (ships with Python; no extra GUI runtime).
• Brain — claude-agent-sdk spawns your installed claude CLI as a subprocess and talks to it. It is not a direct API client, so the CLI is required.
• Eyes — Pillow ImageGrab snapshots each monitor separately; the prompt labels which is the primary vs secondary screen, and Claude reads each with its Read tool. The window hides itself during capture.

Prerequisites

You need three things. The included setup.cmd handles #2 and #3 for you — it auto-installs the Claude Code CLI if it's missing and installs the Python packages.

1. Windows 10 / 11

The app uses Win32 APIs (DPI awareness, rounded corners, multi-monitor capture), so it currently runs on Windows only.

2. Claude Code CLI — installed and logged in

The overlay has no brain of its own; it drives the claude command line.

Easiest: just run setup.cmd (below) — it installs the CLI for you with the official native installer if you don't already have it. To install it yourself:

• Native installer — recommended, no Node.js (PowerShell):

  irm https://claude.ai/install.ps1 | iex
  

  (or winget install Anthropic.ClaudeCode). It auto-updates itself.
• npm (needs Node.js 18+): npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code

Log in with your own Claude account (Pro/Max subscription — no API key needed): run claude auth login (in PowerShell or CMD — not Git Bash) and follow the browser prompt once.

Verify — this must print a version number:

claude --version

If it says "command not found", the CLI isn't installed / on PATH yet.

3. Python 3.10+

**Instal