Right-click any folder → open it in Claude Code. Or launch nine parallel Claude sessions in a 3×3 grid — "Steroids Mode".
A tiny, no-dependency add-on for macOS and Windows that puts Claude Code one
right-click away. Stop opening a terminal, cd-ing into your project, and typing
claude every single time. Just right-click the folder.
Warning
Both menu items launch Claude with --dangerously-skip-permissions ("YOLO mode") —
Claude can read, edit, and run commands without asking for confirmation.
Only use this on folders and projects you trust. See the safety note below.
It adds six entries to your folder right-click menu — a neutral pair that follows whichever agent you picked in Settings, plus a pinned pair per agent so one folder can go to Claude and the next to Codex without changing anything:
| Menu item | What happens |
|---|---|
| Open Coding Agent Here | One terminal in that folder, running your selected agent. |
| Steroids Mode (9× Grid) | 9 sessions at once of your selected agent, tiled in a 3×3 grid over your screen. |
| Open in Claude | One terminal — always Claude Code. |
| Open in Claude — Steroids (9×) | A grid of Claude Code sessions. |
| Open in Codex | One terminal — always OpenAI Codex. |
| Open in Codex — Steroids (9×) | A grid of OpenAI Codex sessions. |
Pinning is only about which CLI: grid size and the autonomy toggle still come from Settings, because those are preferences about how you work rather than about which agent you reached for.
On macOS it also installs a lean menu bar app — a small grid icon (⊞) next to the clock, started at every login. Its menu leads with a block per agent: New Session and a Steroids Mode ▸ submenu where you pick the grid on the spot —
New Session — Claude Code ⌃⌥C
Steroids Mode — Claude Code ▸ │ 2 × 2 — 4 sessions
│ 3 × 2 — 6 sessions
│ 3 × 3 — 9 sessions ✓ ⌃⌥S
│ 4 × 3 — 12 sessions
│ 4 × 4 — 16 sessions
─────────────────────────────────
New Session — OpenAI Codex
Steroids Mode — OpenAI Codex ▸ │ 2 × 2 … 4 × 4
─────────────────────────────────
Arrange Terminals ⌃⌥T
Click 4 × 3 under Codex and twelve Codex sessions open, whatever Settings says — the submenu is a one-off, it never rewrites your defaults. The agent selected in Settings is listed first, and its default grid wears the ✓, so the menu always shows what the hotkeys will do. Three of the actions are also on a true global hotkey that works from any app:
| Hotkey | Action |
|---|---|
| ⌃⌥C | New session (one Terminal window, in ~) |
| ⌃⌥S | Steroids Mode — a grid of sessions (3×3 by default) |
| ⌃⌥T | Arrange Terminals — tile all Terminal windows on the current desktop into a grid sized to the count: 4 → 2×2, 9 → 3×3, 10 → 4×3, 16 → 4×4 … |
Either Option/Control key works (left or right). Windows on other desktops/Spaces and minimized windows are left alone. New sessions open on the Space you're currently looking at, so triggering a hotkey never yanks you to another desktop.
Tearing a swarm down is one click too — the menu bar's Quit submenu offers Close Terminals on This Desktop and Close ALL Agent Sessions. Both kill the running processes first, so macOS never interrupts you with "Do you want to terminate running processes?" dialogs nine times in a row. A session that happens to be updating Claude is left open on purpose — see the FAQ.
Windows gets the same menu: a system tray icon next to the clock, with the same block per agent — New Session and a Steroids Mode submenu of the same shapes, the selected agent first, the configured grid checked — and the same global hotkeys Ctrl+Alt+C / Ctrl+Alt+S / Ctrl+Alt+T. Steroids Mode there opens nine independent Windows Terminal windows tiled over the screen, just as macOS opens nine Terminal windows, and Arrange retiles the Windows Terminal windows on the current virtual desktop. Starts automatically at every login.
Both run with
--dangerously-skip-permissions. See the safety note.
Steroids Mode = 9 Claude sessions, one folder, one click
┌─────────┬─────────┬─────────┐
│ claude │ claude │ claude │
├─────────┼─────────┼─────────┤
│ claude │ claude │ claude │
├─────────┼─────────┼─────────┤
│ claude │ claude │ claude │
└─────────┴─────────┴─────────┘
Why nine? When you want to throw a swarm of agents at a codebase — parallel refactors, parallel investigations, multiple worktrees, or just brute-forcing a problem from nine angles — one click sets up the whole battlefield.
Requirements: macOS, the built-in Terminal.app, and at least one agent CLI on your PATH —
Claude Code (npm i -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code) or
OpenAI Codex (npm i -g @openai/codex).
git clone https://github.com/yairixStudio/claude-code-steroids.git
cd claude-code-steroids/macos
zsh install.shThen: right-click any folder in Finder → Quick Actions → and pick one of the six entries (Open Coding Agent Here, Steroids Mode (9× Grid), or a pinned Claude / Codex one).
You'll also get the menu bar icon (⊞) and the global hotkeys ⌃⌥C / ⌃⌥S / ⌃⌥T
(to change a combo, edit macos/scripts/steroids-menubar.swift and re-run the
installer). Compiling them needs Xcode Command Line Tools (xcode-select --install).
Optional: drag Arrange Terminals from ~/Applications to your Dock for a
one-click tile button.
- Permissions: nothing is requested at install or launch. The first time an action runs, macOS asks once for Automation → Terminal (“Claude Steroids wants to control Terminal”) — click Allow; that's the only permission the app needs. The menu bar's Permissions submenu shows a live ✓ for that grant and lets you revoke it, re-request it, jump to Privacy & Security, or reset every grant the app holds.
- If the items don't appear, log out/in or relaunch Finder (Option-right-click the Finder dock icon → Relaunch).
Uninstall: zsh macos/uninstall.sh
Requirements: Windows 10/11, Windows Terminal, and at least one
agent CLI — Claude Code
(npm i -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code, or its native installer) or
OpenAI Codex (npm i -g @openai/codex).
It does not have to be on PATH: %USERPROFILE%\.local\bin and %APPDATA%\npm
are searched too.
git clone https://github.com/yairixStudio/claude-code-steroids.git
cd claude-code-steroids\windows
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\install.ps1Then: right-click any folder and pick one of the six entries. On Windows 11 they live under “Show more options.” The Steroids grid is nine separate Windows Terminal windows tiled over the screen — so any one session can be closed, moved to the other monitor, or maximized on its own, without touching the other eight.
You'll also get the tray icon (by the clock) and the global hotkeys
Ctrl+Alt+C / Ctrl+Alt+S / Ctrl+Alt+T (to change a combo, edit
windows/scripts/steroids-tray.cs and re-run the installer). The tray menu carries
the same per-agent block as the macOS menu bar:
New Session - Claude Code Ctrl+Alt+C
Steroids Mode - Claude Code ▸ │ 2 x 2 - 4 sessions
│ 3 x 2 - 6 sessions
│ 3 x 3 - 9 sessions ✓ Ctrl+Alt+S
│ 4 x 3 - 12 sessions
│ 4 x 4 - 16 sessions
─────────────────────────────────
New Session - OpenAI Codex
Steroids Mode - OpenAI Codex ▸ │ 2 x 2 … 4 x 4
─────────────────────────────────
Arrange Terminals Ctrl+Alt+T
Click 4 x 3 under Codex and twelve Codex sessions open, whatever Settings says — the pick is a one-off and never rewrites your defaults.
Windows 11's Smart App Control blocks executables it has no reputation for, and the tray app is compiled on your machine at install time — so it can refuse the very first launch. The installer says so and carries on; the same file is usually allowed a minute later, and at your next login regardless.
No administrator rights are needed — everything is written under your user (HKCU),
and the tray app is compiled locally with the csc.exe that ships with Windows.
Uninstall: powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\windows\uninstall.ps1
macOS: menu bar icon (⊞) → Settings… Windows: tray icon → Settings…
Three controls, saved the moment you click — there is no OK button, and the next hotkey press already uses the new value.
| Agent | Claude Code or OpenAI Codex. A live ✓ shows the path it resolved to, or a ✗ with the one-line install command if the CLI isn't there yet. |
| Grid | 2×2 through 4×4 — the default for the ⌃⌥S / Ctrl+Alt+S hotkey and the right-click grid entries. The file accepts anything up to 8×8 if you'd rather type it. The menu bar's and the tray's Steroids Mode submenus offer the same shapes as one-off picks that leave this default alone; a shape you typed into the file yourself is listed there too, first and checked. |
| Autonomy | Skip approval prompts, on or off. Off passes no flag at all, so each CLI behaves exactly as it does when you run it yourself. |
The choice reaches the hotkeys, the menu/tray items, and the two neutral right-click entries at once. The four pinned right-click entries ignore it by design — that is what they are for.
Behind it is one small JSON file, safe to hand-edit:
| macOS | ~/.config/claude-code-steroids/config.json |
| Windows | %APPDATA%\claude-code-steroids\config.json |
{ "version": 1, "agent": "claude", "yolo": true, "columns": 3, "rows": 3 }Every field is optional and out-of-range values fall back to the default, so a config edited into nonsense can never be the reason a hotkey stops working. Reinstalling never overwrites it.
paths is a fourth, macOS-only key — the Locate… button stores a CLI that
isn't on PATH there. Windows has no equivalent, and needs one less than it
looks: a hand-typed path would have to survive cmd's quote-stripping rules to
reach the pane intact, and the launch scripts already search for the CLI
themselves when the PATH they inherited does not mention it — the PATH stored
for your account, then %USERPROFILE%\.local\bin (Claude Code's native
installer) and %APPDATA%\npm (npm's shims). Settings says found off PATH when
that is what located it.
That fallback exists because Explorer hands every right-click a copy of the
environment it captured when it started. Install an agent after you log in and
the menu entries keep failing while the same command works in every terminal you
open — so "not on your PATH" was, in practice, almost never the real problem.
| Agent | Autonomy on | Autonomy off |
|---|---|---|
| Claude Code | claude --dangerously-skip-permissions |
claude |
| OpenAI Codex | codex --dangerously-bypass-approvals-and-sandbox |
codex |
On Windows that line is handed to powershell -NoLogo -NoExit -Command, so the
window stays open at a PowerShell prompt in the same folder once the agent exits.
A single session is centred at about two thirds of the screen width and four
fifths of its height; every window in a grid gets an equal share of the screen.
Closing a swarm is agent-blind on purpose: Close ALL Agent Sessions ends Claude and Codex sessions, so a swarm you started this morning is still yours to close after switching agent this afternoon.
macOS note. A workflow in
~/Library/Servicesis not the same thing as a menu item: macOS keeps a separate on/off switch per service inpbs.plist(System Settings ▸ Extensions ▸ Finder). The installer writes those switches explicitly — keyed by each service's menu item name, which is not always its bundle filename. A Quick Action with no switch is at the mercy of whatever macOS decides the default is, which is how an item can be installed, valid, and completely invisible.
-
macOS uses native Finder Quick Actions (Automator “Run Shell Script” services). The Steroids action calls a small AppleScript that reads your screen size via
NSScreen(no extra permissions), opens nine Terminal windows runningclaude --dangerously-skip-permissions, and tiles them into a 3×3 grid. The menu bar app is a single Swift file (NSStatusItem+ Carbon'sRegisterEventHotKey— true global hotkeys that beat the frontmost app's own shortcuts, no Accessibility permission needed), compiled locally by the installer into Claude Steroids.app (a signed bundle with a stable bundle ID, so permission prompts show a real app name and its Permissions menu can manage grants viatccutil) and started at login as a LaunchAgent. On macOS 26 (Tahoe), closing swarms kills processes by tty-scoped PID lookup rather than a system-widepkillsweep — the sweep is what used to make Tahoe's new App-Data protection fire a permission prompt for every unrelated app (WhatsApp, Music, …). Arrange Terminals is a JXA script: it reads on-screen window bounds viaCGWindowList(which only reports the current Space), matches them to Terminal's scriptable windows, and retiles them into aceil(√n)-column grid over the visible screen area. -
Windows uses registry context-menu entries under
HKCUthat call PowerShell, which opens one Windows Terminal (wt.exe) window per session and places each in its own cell with Win32MoveWindow— the same arithmetic Arrange Terminals uses, so a grid you open and a grid you retile land on the same pixels. The tray app is a single C# file (NotifyIcon+RegisterHotKey) compiled locally by the installer and started at login via theHKCURun key. Arrange Terminals enumerates Windows Terminal windows with Win32EnumWindows, keeps only those on the current virtual desktop (IVirtualDesktopManager), and retiles them into aceil(√n)-column grid over the primary work area. -
Settings on both platforms is the same small JSON file (see Settings). Nothing caches it: every script re-reads it on each run and every menu re-reads it on each open, which is why switching agent takes effect on the very next hotkey press with nothing to restart. On macOS the window is part of the Swift menu bar app; on Windows it is a WinForms dialog in
steroids-settings.ps1, so the read/write logic lives once — insteroids-common.ps1, where the test suite can reach it — instead of being reimplemented in C#.
Everything is plain text and easy to audit — read the macos/ and windows/ folders.
Out of the box, both actions — Open in Claude and Steroids (9×) — launch the agent with its skip-all-approvals flag:
| Agent | Flag |
|---|---|
| Claude Code | --dangerously-skip-permissions |
| OpenAI Codex | --dangerously-bypass-approvals-and-sandbox |
That means the agent will read, edit, and execute commands in that folder without stopping to ask — and in Steroids Mode, nine of them do it at once. Codex's flag goes further than Claude's: it drops the sandbox as well as the approvals, so there is no filesystem boundary left to contain a mistake.
Use it only on folders and projects you trust. Don't point it at code you just downloaded, a client's repo you haven't reviewed, or anything where an unattended command could do damage.
Prefer the normal, prompt-on-each-action behavior? Turn Autonomy → Skip approval prompts off in Settings. No flag is passed at all then, so each CLI behaves exactly as it does when you run it yourself.
What is Claude Code Steroids Mode? A right-click add-on that opens a folder in Claude Code, or launches nine parallel Claude Code sessions in a 3×3 grid, on macOS and Windows.
Do I need to know how to script anything? No. Run the one-line installer, then use the right-click menu.
Does it work with iTerm / Warp / other terminals? The macOS version targets the built-in Terminal.app; the Windows version targets Windows Terminal. PRs for other terminals are welcome.
Why does Claude still ask “Is this folder trusted?” the first time? That's Claude Code's own one-time per-folder trust prompt — separate from this tool. Accept it once per folder and you won't see it again.
Can I change the grid to 2×2 or 4×4?
Yes — the grid math lives in macos/scripts/steroids-grid.sh and
windows/scripts/steroids-grid.ps1.
Can I close just one session out of the nine? Yes, on both platforms — every session in a grid is a window of its own, so closing, moving or maximizing one leaves the other eight exactly where they were. On Windows this used to be a single window split into nine panes, where the only thing you could do was close all nine at once; it is nine windows now.
How do I close nine Claude sessions without nine confirmation dialogs?
Use the menu bar (macOS) or tray (Windows) Quit submenu → Close Terminals on This
Desktop or Close ALL Agent Sessions. It terminates the agent processes before
closing the windows, so the terminal has nothing left to warn about
(macos/scripts/close-terminals.sh, windows/scripts/close-terminals.ps1).
Will "Close ALL Agent Sessions" close the session I run it from? On Windows, no — that pane is detected and spared, so you can tear a swarm down from inside one of its own sessions. Close Terminals on This Desktop is the blunt one: a single Windows Terminal process owns every window, so it cannot tell them apart and closes all of them, the one you are sitting in included.
Why did a close action leave one window open?
Because Claude was updating itself in it. Claude Code keeps current by shelling out to
npm install -g, which unpacks to a staging directory and only renames it into place at
the very end. Killing it in between doesn't just fail the update — the staging directory
left behind makes every later install fail with ENOTEMPTY, so claude reports
command not found until someone deletes it by hand. The close actions therefore skip a
session with a package install in flight and tell you they did (on Windows, Close
Terminals on This Desktop can't tell panes and windows apart, so it defers the whole
sweep instead). Long-running npm exec / npx processes such as MCP servers are not
installs and never hold a window open.
Does any of this work if I installed Claude Code through npm?
Yes. An npm install runs the CLI as node.exe, which the close actions recognise by the
package on its command line rather than by process name — so unrelated Node processes are
never touched.
Both suites are plain shell — no framework, nothing to install — and neither opens a window, touches your settings, or goes near a running session:
zsh macos/tests/run-tests.sh
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\windows\tests\run-tests.ps1The macOS suite runs every path-quoting check three times: in a UTF-8 shell, in the C
locale, and with LANG/LC_* unset entirely — because that last one is what launchd
hands a Quick Action, and it is where quoting broke. zsh's ${(q)} escapes whatever
the current locale calls unprintable, which in C is 0x90 sitting in the middle of
א. A shell still reassembles that correctly, so a round-trip test stayed green — but
what it left behind was no longer valid UTF-8, and osascript downstream re-read the
orphaned bytes as Mac Roman and re-encoded them, turning ~/Desktop/אתר into
~/Desktop/◊$'\220'◊™◊®. So the suite asserts the property that actually matters:
quoting never takes a multi-byte character apart.
Add -IncludeLive on Windows to also install for real, open Terminal windows and close
them again; those tests use a placeholder command and never launch a real agent.
The Windows half has never been executed. It was written and reviewed on a Mac, where
neither PowerShell nor csc.exe exists — so the automated suite above is the only thing
standing behind it. If you are on Windows and willing to shake it out, there is a full
walkthrough in windows/TESTING.md: the two suites, then the
manual checks no test can reach (the Settings dialog, the tray menu, the six context-menu
entries, a drive root, a non-ASCII folder name), and a template for reporting back.
Issues and PRs welcome — especially Linux support, iTerm/Warp support, and a nested flyout for the Windows context menu (its six entries are currently flat).
MIT © yairixStudio
Keywords: Claude Code, Anthropic, open folder in Claude, right-click Claude, Finder Quick Action, Windows context menu, parallel Claude sessions, multiple Claude agents, 3x3 terminal grid, AI coding assistant, agentic coding, swarm of AI agents, macOS menu bar app, Windows tray app, global hotkeys, tile terminal windows, macOS, Windows, PowerShell, Swift, developer productivity.