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Track Your Claude Code Costs in Rails with the ClaudeUsage

Using Claude Code to build Rails apps? The ClaudeUsage gem automatically tracks your token usage and calculates costs in real-time, giving you complete visibility into your AI development expenses.

⚡ Installation

Add the gem to your Gemfile:

gem 'claude_usage', group: :development

Then run:

bundle install
rails generate claude_usage:install
rake claude_usage:show_project  # Verify which project is tracked

If needed, update the project name in config/initializers/claude_usage.rb:

ClaudeUsage.configure do |config|
  config.project_name = "your-rails-app"
end

That's it! Visit http://localhost:3000/claude-usage to see your usage data.

📊 How to Use

Web Dashboard

Navigate to http://localhost:3000/claude-usage to see:

  • Total cost and token usage
  • Daily breakdown with trends
  • Models used and cache statistics

CLI Commands

Quick terminal reports:

rake claude_usage:daily   # Daily usage breakdown
rake claude_usage:total   # Overall statistics

Ruby API

Access data programmatically in your Rails code:

aggregator = ClaudeUsage::UsageAggregator.new
totals = aggregator.total_usage

puts "Total cost: $#{totals[:total_cost]}"
puts "Total tokens: #{totals[:total_tokens]}"
puts "Models used: #{totals[:models_used].join(', ')}"

💡 Key Features

  • 🤖 Zero Configuration - Automatically detects your Rails project
  • 💰 Real-Time Pricing - Fetches current rates from LiteLLM API
  • 📊 Multiple Interfaces - Web UI, JSON API, and CLI commands
  • ⚡ Smart Caching - Reduces API calls while keeping costs accurate
  • 🔧 Customizable - Configure project name, cache expiry, and offline mode

🎯 Quick Example: Budget Alert

Set up an automated alert when costs exceed your budget:

# lib/tasks/claude_alert.rake
task alert: :environment do
  totals = ClaudeUsage::UsageAggregator.new.total_usage
  budget = 100.00

  if totals[:total_cost] > budget
    puts "⚠️  Usage: $#{totals[:total_cost]} exceeds budget!"
  end
end

Conclusion

The ClaudeUsage gem gives you complete visibility into your Claude Code costs with minimal setup. Install it in under 5 minutes and start tracking your AI development expenses today.

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