5 Claude Code Mods to Install First, and How to Check Each One

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A Claude Code mod is a small add-on that runs inside Claude Code and changes how it looks and behaves. The five to install first are token-ledger, which shows what each session costs, secret-redactor (now transcript-redactor), which hides your API keys, Token Weather, which shows your context window filling up, Blast Radius, which previews risky commands, and Replay Theater, which replays Claude's edits.

Mods aren't sandboxed. They run with your permissions, so check each one before you install it.

Of the five, two are community mods and three are samples from Anthropic. This page has every link, the install commands for all five, and a quick way to check a mod first. You need Claude Code 2.1.287 or later.

Which Claude Code mods should you install first?

token-ledger: see what each session costs

token-ledger pins a line under your prompt with your session cost, the last turn's cost, tokens in and out, and your cache hit ratio, so you see what a session costs before you start the next one. Type /ledger for a table with one row per turn. It's a community mod, not from Anthropic, and the cost is the figure Claude Code already reports, not an estimate.

transcript-redactor: hide your API keys before Claude reads them

The video shows secret-redactor. On 12 October 2026 its author reorganised the repo into claude-code-mods, and secret-redactor is no longer in it. The mod there that does the same job is transcript-redactor, so that's the one to install.

transcript-redactor swaps API keys and passwords for placeholders before Claude reads them, whether you paste them, a tool prints them or they sit in a file. It puts the real value back when a command runs, so Claude can still use your keys. Email addresses are hidden too if you turn on its pii setting. The placeholders only live in memory for the session, but a placeholder in a file Claude writes lands on disk as the real key. It's a community mod, not from Anthropic.

Token Weather: watch your context window fill up

Token Weather draws a one-line forecast above your prompt: a weather icon, the percentage of your context window used, and a small chart of recent turns. It runs from Clear (under 25% used) to Compact soon (90% and up), with real figures rather than estimates. It's one of Anthropic's sample mods, shared as-is.

Blast Radius: see what a risky command would change

Before Claude runs a risky command such as rm -rf, git reset --hard or a force push, Blast Radius holds it and shows what it would change, like the files it would delete or the commits a push would drop. You get Proceed and Cancel buttons. It only watches Claude's Bash tool and can miss wrapped commands like bash -c, so treat it as a check, not a guarantee. It's one of Anthropic's sample mods, shared as-is.

Replay Theater: step through every edit Claude made

Type /replay after a turn and Replay Theater opens a pane that steps through every file edit Claude made, one diff at a time, with Prev and Next buttons. It only watches and never blocks or changes an edit. It's one of Anthropic's sample mods, shared as-is.

How do you install and check Claude Code mods?

1. Check your Claude Code version

Mods are on by default from Claude Code 2.1.287 in the terminal. Check yours, and update if it's older:

claude --version

token-ledger's README still tells you to set CLAUDE_CODE_ENABLE_FUNCTION_HOOKS. Anthropic's docs say version 2.1.287 and later ignores that setting, so you can skip it.

2. Install the two community mods

Run these inside a Claude Code session. Each pair adds the author's marketplace, then installs the mod:

/plugin marketplace add Arunjay4213/claude-mods
/plugin install token-ledger@claude-mods
 
/plugin marketplace add ray-amjad/claude-code-mods
/plugin install transcript-redactor@claude-code-mods

Restart Claude Code so they load, then run /plugin to see which mods are active.

3. Try the three Anthropic samples

These live in Anthropic's claude-code-playground repo. Clone it, then load one mod for a single session with --plugin-dir:

git clone https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code-playground.git
cd claude-code-playground/claude-code/mods
claude --plugin-dir ./token-weather

Swap token-weather for blast-radius or replay-theater. To keep a mod, add the folder as a local marketplace and install it:

claude plugin marketplace add ./
claude plugin install token-weather@claude-code-playground-mods --scope user

The three samples can compete for the band above your prompt, and only one mod can use it at a time, so try them one at a time.

4. Check a mod before you trust it

A mod is code that runs with your permissions. It can read and write your files, start programs, make network requests and read the API keys in your environment variables and settings. So install mods only from authors you trust.

To see what a mod does before it runs, clone it and validate it:

claude plugin validate ./some-mod

The hooks: and calls: lines in the output list the events the mod handles and what it asks Claude Code to do, like reading files or making network requests.

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