review-pane

name

review-pane

description

Open a claude-review pane — a focused, read-only TUI that shows the latest response (plus plan/tasks) of a single Claude Code session in a split terminal. Use this skill when the user asks to 'launch a claude-review pane', 'open a review pane', 'watch this session in another pane', 'show the latest response on the side', 'review pane for this session', 'put this session in a side pane', or otherwise wants to follow a session's output in a second pane while they keep working here. Self-installs claude-review if missing, resolves the right session id, and hands over the exact command to paste in the other pane.

claude-review pane

claude-review is an interactive, read-only terminal viewer that pins to one Claude Code session and renders only its latest response (and plan/tasks surfaces), refreshing in place. It runs in a second terminal pane while the user drives Claude Code in this one.

The one hard rule

NEVER launch the TUI from a tool call. claude-review (without -l) is a full-screen interactive program that expects a real TTY. Run from a Bash tool call its stdin is a pipe, so it blocks and never returns — the agent turn hangs until it is force-killed by timeout. This skill RESOLVES the session id and HANDS the user a command to run themselves in their other pane. The only sub-commands you may run yourself are the non-interactive ones: claude-review -l, -V, -h.

Golden path

1. Detect and prepare

Ensure the tool is installed — don't just print an install command and stop; run the bundled setup which installs it if missing (idempotent, instant if already present). Resolve the script via $CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR (set by Claude Code to this skill's own directory, whatever the install layout):

bash "${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR:-${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT:-$HOME/.claude/skills/review-pane}}/scripts/setup.sh" 2>&1

($CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR is preferred; the CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT and literal ~/.claude/skills/review-pane entries are fallbacks for older versions / a future plugin packaging. Do not use $(dirname "$0") — a SKILL.md body is injected as instructions, not run as a script, so $0 is the shell, not this file.)

The script prints one grep-able final line and will:

• ensure claude-review is installed (prefers an isolated install; offline from a local clone if present, else from the pinned GitHub release),
• confirm claude-review -V works and report whether ~/.local/bin is on PATH.

Read the final line:

• SETUP_OK <ver> — good; proceed.
• SETUP_PATH_INACTIVE <ver> — installed, but ~/.local/bin isn't on the current PATH. In step 3, hand over the absolute form $HOME/.local/bin/claude-review -s <id>, and tell the user to add ~/.local/bin to PATH (or open a fresh login pane) for the short form to work.
• SETUP_FAIL <reason> — tell the user the reason; offer the manual install (pipx install git+https://github.com/r3al1tym/claude-review@v0.3.0).

2. Resolve which session the user means

• "this session" / "current" / unspecified (the common case): the env var CLAUDE_CODE_SESSION_ID is the session running right now — printf '%s\n' "$CLAUDE_CODE_SESSION_ID". Use it directly; no picker needed.
• A different session they describe ("the one about the deploy"): run claude-review -l (lists ● id age model first-prompt), match on the prompt text, take the 8-char id.
• A different project: sessions are per-project. Don't hand-construct the slug — the encoding collapses several characters (/, ., space, \, drive :) to -, so a guessed slug often misses. Instead pass -p an absolute project path and let the tool encode it: -p "$PWD/examples", or -p /home/u/some.repo. If you must use a slug, copy the literal directory name from ls ~/.claude/projects/ rather than building it. Confirm with claude-review -l -p <path-or-slug> if unsure.
• Env var empty / ambiguous: don't guess — tell them to run bare claude-review (interactive picker) or run claude-review -l and present the choices.

3. Hand over the command

Give a single, copy-pasteable line and say to run it in their other pane:

claude-review -s <id>

(prefix -p <slug> if it's another project). Use the 8-char id prefix — it's enough and reads cleaner. Confirm what it resolved to ("this session, auto-detected" / "the session about X").

Keys to mention if helpful

Tab cycles surfaces (response / plan / tasks) · ↑↓/j/k scroll · f freezes the view while Claude keeps working · s switches session · q quits.

Notes

• Read-only and offline — only reads transcript files under ~/.claude/projects (or $CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR/projects if that env var relocates ~/.claude).
• Refreshes in place as this session works; no need to relaunch per turn.
• Windows Terminal / tmux: just give the command — let the user place the pane; don't try to spawn panes for them.
• Platform: the interactive TUI needs a POSIX terminal — Linux, macOS, and Windows via WSL all work. On native Windows (cmd/PowerShell) the TUI won't run; it exits with a clear "use WSL" message (-l/-V/-h still work). If the user is on native Windows, tell them to run claude-review inside WSL.