Quick Start

Get up and running with Irrlicht in minutes. Follow these steps to monitor your first AI coding session.

Your First Session

  1. Install Irrlicht
    Follow the installation guide to get Irrlicht.app on your system.
  2. Launch the app
    open /Applications/Irrlicht.app

    The embedded daemon starts automatically — no separate services to manage.

  3. Look for the sparkle icon
    A small sparkle icon appears in your macOS menu bar, confirming Irrlicht is running.
  4. Start an AI coding session
    Open a terminal and launch a Claude Code or Codex session as you normally would.
  5. Watch the menu bar
    A purple dot appears as the agent starts working. The light changes color to reflect the agent's state in real time.
  6. Click the menu bar icon
    The popover shows full session details including model, tokens, cost, and context pressure.

What You'll See

  • Project name, git branch, model, elapsed time, and token count
  • Context utilization percentage with pressure-level colors
  • Estimated cost per session
  • Sessions grouped by project

Understanding the States

  • working -- the agent is processing
  • waiting -- the agent needs your input
  • ready -- the agent is idle
Tip These three states map directly to the menu bar light color. Learn more in The Light System.

Web Dashboard

Open http://127.0.0.1:7837 in your browser for the web UI. It provides the same session data as the menu bar app, with real-time updates via WebSocket.

CLI Listing

For a terminal-based view of all active sessions:

irrlicht-ls

Use watch mode for a live-updating display that refreshes every second:

irrlicht-ls -w

Next Steps