texpop

Hotkey LaTeX popup for Claude Code (and Codex, experimentally) — overlays your terminal, picks the focused chat, renders Markdown + KaTeX.

Press Ctrl + Alt + V in any Claude Code terminal session.
The last assistant message renders as Markdown + LaTeX in a window that overlays the terminal exactly.
Esc closes. Press the hotkey again to refresh with the latest reply.

texpop is for the people who ask AI assistants to derive things, not just refactor them — students, researchers, anyone whose terminal output contains more \sum than ;. The reasoning is already in your transcript on disk; texpop just renders it where it's legible. It's a LaTeX parser for Claude Code (and Codex, experimentally) for Windows Terminal, conhost, WezTerm, Hyprland, Sway, and the rest of the post-VS-Code world: KaTeX, focused-chat detection, DPI-correct overlay, fully offline.

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Table of contents

• Why this exists
• Comparison
• Features
• Install
• Use
• How it picks the focused chat
• Customisation
• Adapter coverage
• Known limitations
• Troubleshooting
• Status
• Credits
• License

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Why this exists

Every existing LaTeX renderer for Claude assumes you live in a specific surface. VS Code extensions like claude-code-katex and MathRender only fire when you run Claude Code as a VS Code task — they're useless if you launch claude from Windows Terminal, conhost, WezTerm, or any other terminal. Tampermonkey scripts like Claude-LaTeX-Parser and Claude-LaTeX-Math-Renderer only target claude.ai in the browser — they never see the CLI. And none of them solve the harder problem: when you have several Claude Code chats open across tabs and panes, which one are you looking at right now? texpop is the first Windows Terminal LaTeX renderer built specifically for terminal-CLI users, and the only one that detects the focused chat instead of guessing the newest file.

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Comparison

If you run Claude Code in a terminal, texpop is the only choice — every other tool requires you to be either in VS Code or in the browser.

Full feature comparison vs every other LaTeX renderer in the Claude orbit

Tool	Surface	LaTeX render	Markdown + math context	Picks focused chat	Window matches terminal	Custom callouts	Offline
texpop	Terminal (Windows Terminal, conhost, WezTerm, ...)	✅ KaTeX	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
claude-code-katex (VS Code)	VS Code only	✅ KaTeX	✅	❌	❌	❌	✅
MathRender (VS Code)	VS Code only	✅ MathJax	partial	❌	❌	❌	✅
Claude-LaTeX-Parser (Tampermonkey)	claude.ai web only	✅	partial	❌	❌	❌	❌
Claude-LaTeX-Math-Renderer (Tampermonkey)	claude.ai web only	✅	partial	❌	❌	❌	❌

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Features

• Hotkey-triggered. Ctrl + Alt + V from any allowlisted terminal, anywhere in your Claude Code session. No menu hunting, no command palette.
• Focused-chat detection. PEB CWD reads + UIAutomation tab name + ai-title transcript matching pick the chat you're actually looking at, even with five Claude Code tabs open in Windows Terminal.
• DPI-correct overlay. The popup window matches the terminal's exact pixel rectangle, with per-monitor DPI v2 awareness — drag your terminal between a 100% and 200% display and it still lines up.
• KaTeX rendering. Inline $...$, display $$...$$, and \(...\) / \[...\] delimiters all render. Pre-loaded macros for Dirac notation (\ket, \bra, \braket), \Tr, blackboard sets (\R, \C, \Z, \N), and \eps.
• Full Markdown. Headings, lists, tables, blockquotes, fenced code blocks — markdown-it 14.x renders the lot, with math interleaved naturally.
• Custom callout styling. Patterns like * Insight ──── body ──── automatically transform into styled callout cards (Insight, Tip, Note, Warning, Danger, Caution, Error, Key-Takeaway).
• Offline by default. KaTeX 0.16.x and markdown-it 14.x are vendored locally by setup.ps1 / setup-linux.sh and pinned by SHA-256 in vendor.lock; once installed, texpop never touches the network.
• Customisable hotkey. Edit one line in texpop.ahk (Windows) or your compositor config (Linux) to rebind to any combo.
• Customisable icon. Drop assets/icon-override.{svg,png,jpg,ico} to replace the default ϕ-on-disc favicon.
• Customisable window size. Pass -Width / -Height to show.ps1, or let texpop auto-size to the terminal.
• Codex CLI adapter (experimental). A ChatSourceAdapter for Codex CLI ships in adapters/codex.ps1. Contributions welcome to harden it.
• Diagnostic mode. Ctrl + Alt + Shift + V (Windows) or TEXPOP_DEBUG=1 (Linux) surfaces the detection cascade for troubleshooting.
• MIT licensed. Personal-scratch project, but yours to fork, ship, and modify. Windows 10/11 and Linux (tested on Hyprland + Ghostty) supported.

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Install

Linux

1. Clone the repo.

   git clone https://github.com/dyed-eye/texpop.git ~/.local/share/texpop
   cd ~/.local/share/texpop
   

2. Fetch KaTeX and markdown-it.

   ./setup-linux.sh
   

3. Install the native popup backend if your distro does not ship it.

   Package names vary, but look for Python 3 bindings for Qt 6 WebEngine
   (python-pyqt6-webengine, python3-pyqt6.qtwebengine, or similar).

4. Show the latest local session.

   ./show-linux.py --source auto
   

   Use --source local, --source claude, or --session /path/to/session.jsonl
   when you want deterministic selection.
   On Hyprland, use --hyprland-mode floating to overlay the focused terminal
   or --hyprland-mode tiled to open as a normal tiled window. On Sway, GNOME,
   KDE, or any non-Hyprland compositor, pass --hyprland-mode none (or set
   TEXPOP_HYPRLAND_MODE=none) — the default floating is a no-op there but
   prints a slight delay while it polls for a hyprctl binary that does not exist.

5. Bind a hotkey in your compositor.

   Linux does not install a global hotkey by itself. Bind the script in your
   compositor or desktop shortcut settings.

   Hyprland example:

   bind = CTRL ALT, V, exec, ~/.local/share/texpop/show-linux.py --source auto --hyprland-mode floating
   bind = CTRL ALT SHIFT, V, exec, ~/.local/share/texpop/show-linux.py --source auto --hyprland-mode tiled
   

   Sway example:

   bindsym Ctrl+Alt+v exec ~/.local/share/texpop/show-linux.py --source auto
   

On Hyprland, texpop reads the active window geometry and floats the popup over
the terminal when --hyprland-mode floating is used. Sway, GNOME, and KDE can
run the same script, but exact Wayland placement depends on the compositor and
desktop shortcut rules.

Windows

1. Install AutoHotkey v2.

   winget install AutoHotkey.AutoHotkey
   

2. Clone the repo into your Claude scripts directory.

   git clone https://github.com/dyed-eye/texpop.git "$env:USERPROFILE\.claude\scripts\texpop"
   

3. Run setup to fetch KaTeX and markdown-it. This pulls KaTeX 0.16.x, markdown-it 14.x, and the KaTeX font files into vendor/. Idempotent — re-run anytime to refresh.

   powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File "$env:USERPROFILE\.claude\scripts\texpop\setup.ps1"
   

4. Double-click texpop.ahk. The green H AutoHotkey tray icon appears. The hotkey is now live in any allowlisted terminal.

5. (Optional) Auto-launch on login. Drop a shortcut to texpop.ahk into shell:startup (Win + R, type shell:startup, hit Enter, paste the shortcut there).

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Use

Hotkey	Where	What it does
Ctrl + Alt + V	Any allowlisted terminal	Detects the focused Claude Code chat and renders its last assistant message
Ctrl + Alt + Shift + V	Any allowlisted terminal	Diagnostic mode — runs detection without launching the popup, opens %TEMP%\texpop-debug.log in Notepad
Esc	Inside the popup	Close the popup

On Linux, the first two rows are whatever shortcut you bind in the compositor.
Esc closes the native Qt popup. Browser fallback windows depend on the browser
and window manager, so use the native Qt backend for reliable close behavior.

Typical workflow: you're chatting with Claude Code about a physics or math problem. Claude replies with \ket{\psi}, a $$\hat{H}\ket{\psi} = E\ket{\psi}$$ display equation, and a * Insight ──── callout summarising the result. In the terminal, that's raw text. Press Ctrl + Alt + V and the same reply pops up rendered — properly typeset math, styled callout, syntax-highlighted code blocks. Read it, hit Esc, you're back in the terminal. Ask the next question, hit Ctrl + Alt + V again to refresh. The popup window is sized and positioned to overlap the terminal exactly, so your eyes don't have to relocate.

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How it picks the focused chat

On Windows, texpop matches the foreground window's chat title against the
aiTitle recorded in each Claude Code transcript on disk — the session whose
stored title matches the active tab wins. Press Ctrl + Alt + Shift + V to dump
the full detection cascade to %TEMP%\texpop-debug.log if it ever picks the
wrong chat.

On Linux, the current port first tries to resolve the focused session from the
active Ghostty window, its child shell, and the CLI process's transcript path.
Codex is resolved from open ~/.codex/sessions/rollout-*.jsonl handles. Claude
Code is resolved from open ~/.claude/projects/*.jsonl handles, or from the
focused process CWD mapped to Claude's encoded project directory. This works for
separate Ghostty windows on Hyprland. If the resolver cannot identify the active
session, texpop falls back to the newest matching .jsonl transcript for the
selected source (--source local, --source claude, or --source auto). Use
--session /path/to/session.jsonl when you need a hard override.

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Customisation

What	How
Change the hotkey	Edit ^!v:: and ^+!v:: lines in texpop.ahk, right-click the tray icon → Reload Script. AHK v2 modifiers: ^=Ctrl, !=Alt, +=Shift, #=Win
Replace the icon	Drop a file at assets/icon-override.{svg,png,jpg,ico} — first match wins. The bundled fallback is icon-default.ico (Tokyo-Night ϕ). If it doesn't refresh, delete %LOCALAPPDATA%\texpop\edge-profile-v3
Add a callout palette	Add a .callout-yourname { ... } rule in template.html next to the existing .callout-warning / .callout-tip / .callout-danger blocks. Built-in palettes already cover Insight, Tip, Note, Warning, Caution, Warn, Danger, Error, Key-Takeaway
Add a terminal exe	Append to the TerminalExes array near the top of texpop.ahk, reload the script
Override popup dimensions	Call show.ps1 -Width 900 -Height 700 directly. Default behaviour matches the foreground terminal's DPI-corrected pixel rectangle

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Adapter coverage

On Windows, texpop is built around a ChatSourceAdapter interface — each AI CLI gets its own adapter file in adapters/. The orchestrator in show.ps1 walks the foreground process tree, then asks each registered adapter "is this yours?" The first adapter to match owns the rest of the pipeline: pick the focused session file, parse the transcript, return the last assistant message as Markdown.

The Linux port currently keeps Claude/Codex transcript parsing in show-linux.py.
For Hyprland + Ghostty, it resolves the focused Ghostty window to the CLI
process's active transcript where possible. Other terminal/compositor
combinations fall back to newest-session selection unless you pass --session.

Adapter	File	Status
Claude Code	adapters/claude-code.ps1	Stable, primary target. Reads ~/.claude/projects/<encoded>/*.jsonl, joins assistant text by requestId, matches aiTitle against window/tab titles.
Codex CLI	adapters/codex.ps1	Experimental. Best-effort transcript discovery; format may shift between Codex CLI versions. PRs welcome — verify against your installed Codex version and submit fixes.

Adding a new Windows adapter is a single PowerShell file that exposes Name, Description, Match, FindFocusedSession, GetLastAssistantTurn and appends itself to $script:Adapters. Use adapters/claude-code.ps1 as the template.

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Under development

These are on the roadmap but not shipped:

• Linux focused-chat detection outside Ghostty. The Linux port resolves
  focused Codex and Claude Code sessions for separate Ghostty windows on
  Hyprland. Other terminals and Ghostty tabs/panes still need terminal-specific
  focus plumbing.
• macOS port. Similar shape: skhd/Hammerspoon, lsof/proc_pidinfo, the macOS Accessibility API, a Safari/Chromium app window. Same "open an issue first" rule.
• Codex CLI adapter. adapters/codex.ps1 ships experimental, doc-driven. The transcript layout was reverse-engineered from Codex CLI documentation and a couple of community blog posts — not from a parsed real session. PRs welcome from anyone running an actual Codex CLI install who can verify the field shapes and tighten the parser.

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Known limitations

/btw exchanges may not appear

Claude Code's built-in /btw slash command does not always persist its question/answer pair to the session JSONL on disk — at least not synchronously. The exchange shows up live in the terminal but may never reach ~/.claude/projects/<encoded>/<sessionid>.jsonl, or it lands there with significant delay.

texpop reads from disk. If Claude Code hasn't written the /btw exchange to the transcript file by the time you press the hotkey, there is nothing for texpop (or any external tool) to render — so the popup falls through to the previous on-disk assistant turn.

The adapter does have detection logic for /btw and /aside: if the most-recent user message in the transcript starts with /btw or /aside, the popup prefixes the answer with ## /btw or ## /aside so the modal nature is visually explicit. That code is dormant until Claude Code starts persisting these exchanges reliably.

This is upstream behavior, not a texpop bug. Track anthropics/claude-code for any change in /btw persistence semantics.

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Troubleshooting

Symptom	Likely cause	Fix
Hotkey doesn't fire	Your terminal exe isn't in the allowlist	Add it to TerminalExes in texpop.ahk and reload
Hotkey doesn't fire	The AutoHotkey process was killed	Re-run texpop.ahk (or check the H tray icon is present)
Wrong session opens	UIA tab title or aiTitle mismatch	Ctrl + Alt + Shift + V to dump the debug log; check the cascade output in %TEMP%\texpop-debug.log
Popup is wrong size or off-screen	Per-monitor DPI v2 unavailable	texpop requires Windows 10 build 1703+ for DPI_AWARENESS_CONTEXT_PER_MONITOR_AWARE_V2; older builds may fall back to logical pixels
Edge not found error	Microsoft Edge is missing	Install Edge (winget install Microsoft.Edge). texpop requires Edge --app mode for the frameless overlay and isolated profile, so this is a hard failure (a generic browser tab would lose Esc-to-close and the DPI-correct positioning)
Favicon doesn't update after override	Edge cached the old icon	Delete %LOCALAPPDATA%\texpop\edge-profile-v3 (or run ie4uinit.exe -show to refresh the Windows IconCache) and re-trigger
vendor/ missing error	setup.ps1 was never run	Run setup.ps1 to fetch KaTeX and markdown-it
Popup is empty / unstyled	Vendor files corrupted or partial download	Re-run setup.ps1 -Force to refetch everything
No math renders	The reply has no math delimiters	Confirm the reply contains $...$, $$...$$, \(...\), or \[...\]

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Status

Personal-scratch project, MIT licensed. No support guarantees, no roadmap commitments, no SLA — texpop scratches my own itch and I'm publishing it because the same itch keeps showing up in anthropics/claude-code issues. Cross-platform as of v0.2.0: Windows is the primary author target, Linux/Hyprland is community-maintained (@grechman). PRs welcome for: new terminal exes, new ChatSourceAdapter implementations, new callout palettes, bugfixes, documentation, and additional compositor support (Sway, KDE, GNOME). Out of scope: VS Code integration (use claude-code-katex instead), web-mode rendering (use a Tampermonkey script), and large feature additions that drift from "render the focused chat's last reply, fast." If you want something bigger, fork it.

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Credits

Built on the shoulders of:

• KaTeX — fast math typesetting for the web (MIT).
• markdown-it — pluggable Markdown parser (MIT).
• AutoHotkey v2 — Windows hotkey + window automation (GPLv2).
• Anthropic — for Claude Code, whose transcripts texpop reads.
• OpenAI — for the Codex CLI, the experimental second adapter target.

The default favicon is a hand-traced cursive ϕ (varphi) on a Tokyo-Night-blue disc.

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License

MIT — see LICENSE.