A macOS companion tool for Claude Code that monitors active sessions, extracts knowledge from conversations, and syncs learnings to an Obsidian vault.

• Rust CLI (hpc) — Session discovery, knowledge extraction, vault sync
• Swift Menu Bar App (Hippo) — Real-time session monitoring, vault search, git enrichment
• LaunchAgent — Daily automated sync at 1:00 AM

• macOS 14+
• Rust (for building the CLI)
• Xcode Command Line Tools (for building the Swift app)
• Claude Code installed
• Obsidian (optional, for vault viewing)

./scripts/install.sh

This will:

1. Build the Rust CLI and link it to ~/.local/bin/hpc
2. Build the Swift menu bar app
3. Install the LaunchAgent for daily sync

Config is stored at ~/Library/Application Support/com.chagui.hippoclaudus/config.json:

{
  "vault_path": "~/Documents/Obsidian/Vaults/Claude",
  "vault_name": "Claude",
  "claude_projects_path": "~/.claude/projects",
  "active_window_minutes": 5
}

vault_name is optional — it's the Obsidian vault name used in obsidian://open?vault=... URLs. If omitted, the last path component of vault_path is used (e.g. Claude above). Set it explicitly when your Obsidian-registered vault name differs from the folder name.

active_window_minutes controls how long a session is considered "active" after its last modification. Defaults to 5 minutes when omitted. Widen it (e.g. to 30) if you often have multiple Claude Code windows open and want them all to appear in the menu bar at once.

# Show status (JSON output for the menu bar app)
hpc status

# List unprocessed sessions from the last 7 days
hpc list --days 7

# Dry-run: preview what knowledge would be extracted
hpc sync --dry-run --days 7

# Run sync (creates/updates vault files)
hpc sync --days 7

# Extract session text without syncing
hpc extract --days 7

# Verbose logging
hpc --verbose sync --days 7

cd Hippo
swift build -c release
.build/release/Hippo

The .claude/skills/ directory ships two slash commands for use inside a Claude Code session:

• /save-note <title> — Save a focused note about the current topic to your Obsidian vault.
• /save-knowledge [topic] — Extract all distinct topics from the session and organize them into vault files.

Both require an OBSIDIAN_VAULT environment variable pointing at the absolute path of your vault:

export OBSIDIAN_VAULT=~/Documents/Obsidian/Vaults/Claude

The skills are complementary to automated sync: use them for ad-hoc saves mid-session, and let the LaunchAgent handle the daily batch pass.

./scripts/uninstall.sh

CLI not found after install: Ensure ~/.local/bin is in your PATH.

Menu bar app can't find binary: Run scripts/install.sh to create the symlink at ~/.local/bin/hpc.

Sync not running automatically: Check the LaunchAgent:

launchctl list | grep hippoclaudus
launchctl kickstart gui/$(id -u)/com.chagui.hippoclaudus

View sync logs:

tail -f ~/Library/Logs/com.chagui.hippoclaudus/sync.log
tail -f ~/Library/Logs/com.chagui.hippoclaudus/sync.err

Log rotation: Sync logs grow over time. Use macOS newsyslog or periodically truncate:

: > ~/Library/Logs/com.chagui.hippoclaudus/sync.log

# Build and check
cargo build && cargo clippy
cd Hippo && swift build

# Run tests (requires cargo-nextest)
cargo nextest run