UsageForge
On the $20 Claude Pro and ChatGPT Plus plans, the 5-hour window starts with your first message. UsageForge sends that message for you, at 6:00 or the minute the last window resets, so a fresh window is already running when you sit down.
brew install kenny2077/tap/usageforge && usageforge ui
The cap isn't the problem. The clock is. Start at nine, run dry by 10:40, and you wait until two. Open the window at six instead and it resets at eleven, while you're still at your desk. One small message, sent before you wake up, moves your resets into your working hours.
Control panel
One page on your own computer. Pick times on a timeline, see live usage for Claude Code and Codex, and send a test message. After installing, you never need the terminal.
Modes
Pick fixed times, or let it chain windows back to back. Either way it runs quietly on your computer, using the login you already have.
Mode 1
Your times your days
Click the hours you want on the timeline. UsageForge sends one tiny message at each, so a window opened at 6:00 resets at 11:00, mid-morning instead of after lunch. Each time goes out on time, even while a window is open, so your day never drifts.
Without
With a 6:00 ping
Mode 2
All week hands off
Starts the next window the minute the last one ends, all week. It checks every five minutes using Claude Code's own /usage and Codex's own logs, so checking costs nothing.
Claude Code + Codex
Private by design MIT license
UsageForge runs the official claude and codex programs you already use. It never copies, exports or uploads a token. It runs quietly in the background and only notifies you when something needs you.
~ terminalexample
$ usageforge doctor UsageForge 3.8.9 Claude Code (mode: schedule) ✓ signed in ✓ the background job can find it Codex (mode: watch) ✓ signed in Background check ✓ on, every 5 minutes All good.
Setup
Three steps, no terminal knowledge needed after the first.
One Homebrew command. Needs Claude Code or Codex, signed in.
brew install kenny2077/tap/usageforge
Click the hours on the timeline, or let it run back to back.
usageforge ui
It runs in the background and tells you if something needs you.
usageforge doctor
FAQ
No. Your caps stay the same. UsageForge changes when each 5-hour window starts, so a reset lands while you're working instead of while you're asleep.
Very little. Claude gets one short Haiku message with tools, hooks, plugins and MCP servers turned off. Codex gets one read-only codex exec at low reasoning effort. Back to back sends about 4–5 messages a day per tool, and each one counts a little toward your weekly cap.
UsageForge uses the official programs, your own login, on your own machine. It never extracts a token or shares an account, and it sends a few tiny messages a day with random timing. We found no report of anyone banned for scheduled pings. Anthropic's and OpenAI's terms leave automation a grey area, though, so read them and decide for yourself. Schedule mode is the most conservative choice.
Yes. A sleeping laptop can't send anything. On macOS, launchd runs a missed ping as soon as the Mac wakes. To wake it on a schedule, run sudo pmset repeat wakeorpoweron MTWRFSU 05:58:00.
No. Closing the page changes nothing. A background check that's built into macOS runs every 5 minutes, even after a restart, and notifies you if something goes wrong.
For Claude Code, from its own /usage command. It runs on your computer and sends no message. For Codex, from the log files Codex already writes. Neither costs any quota.
UsageForge sees the reset time and waits until then. It doesn't send messages that can't succeed, and it sends you one notification.
Set both tools to Off in the panel, or run usageforge stop. Then brew uninstall usageforge and delete ~/.local/state/usageforge.
Get started