claude-ghost

A stealth terminal wrapper around Claude Code. Launches a real PowerShell session that looks and behaves exactly like a normal shell — until you press F12. Then it becomes a Claude prompt. Press F12 again to wipe the screen and go back. Press F12 once more and your previous chat reappears.

Built for people who want to use Claude inside a terminal that does not visually scream "AI is here."

PS C:\Users\you> git status
On branch main
nothing to commit, working tree clean
PS C:\Users\you>            ← press F12
>                           ← AI mode (dim '>' prompt, looks like a continuation prompt)
> summarize the last 3 commits in this repo
... Claude responds ...
>                           ← press F12 — screen + scrollback wipe (killswitch)
PS C:\Users\you>            ← back to a clean PowerShell
                            ← press F12 again — your previous chat is replayed

How it works

• Spawns a real powershell.exe inside a PTY (via node-pty). All shell behavior — prompts, colors, completions, running programs — works because it really is PowerShell.
• Puts your terminal's stdin into raw mode and intercepts keystrokes before they reach the inner shell. F12 flips between shell mode and AI mode.
• AI mode pipes each prompt (via stdin, to avoid Windows shell argument splitting) to the local claude CLI:

  claude -p --session-id <uuid> --permission-mode bypassPermissions
  

  A fixed --session-id per ghost run, followed by --resume <id> on each subsequent call, gives Claude conversation memory across messages.
• Uses your existing Claude Code login — your Claude.ai subscription. No API key needed.
• The AI conversation is buffered in memory and re-rendered every time you re-enter AI mode, so the chat history is visible again after toggling back.
• When you toggle out of AI mode, the visible screen and scrollback are wiped — a "killswitch" so nothing AI-shaped lingers on screen.

Requirements

• Windows 10 / 11
• Node.js 18 or newer (tested with 22)
• Claude Code installed and authenticated (claude on your PATH)
• Windows Terminal recommended. The legacy "Windows PowerShell" blue console (conhost) has poor ConPTY and raw-key support, which can break keystroke interception.

Install

One-liner (recommended). Open PowerShell and run:

iwr -useb https://raw.githubusercontent.com/PrincNL/claude-ghost/main/install.ps1 | iex

Or clone manually:

git clone https://github.com/PrincNL/claude-ghost.git
cd claude-ghost
.\install.ps1

The installer does three things:

1. npm install to fetch node-pty
2. Drops a claude-ghost.cmd shim into your npm global prefix so it's on PATH
3. Adds a claude-ghost function to your PowerShell $PROFILE. The function (not the cmd shim) is what makes F12 actually work — it keeps node's stdin as a real TTY so raw-mode keystroke interception is possible

Restart PowerShell after install, or . $PROFILE to reload.

Usage

claude-ghost

Key	Action
F12 or Shift+Tab	Toggle between shell and AI mode. Both are enabled by default — use Shift+Tab if your laptop's Fn key swallows F12. Exiting AI mode wipes the screen + scrollback (killswitch); re-entering replays your prior chat.
Enter	(AI mode) Send the current line to Claude
Backspace	(AI mode) Edit the current line
Ctrl+C	(AI mode) Cancel a running Claude response
Ctrl+D	(AI mode) Exit AI mode back to shell (no screen wipe)

Type exit in shell mode (or close the terminal) to end the session.

Configuration

All optional. Set as environment variables before launching claude-ghost.

Variable	Default	Description
CLAUDE_GHOST_SHELL	powershell.exe	Shell to spawn inside the PTY (e.g. pwsh.exe for PowerShell 7)
CLAUDE_GHOST_TOGGLE_KEYS	F12 + Shift+Tab (1b5b32347e,1b5b5a)	Comma-separated hex sequences of the keys that toggle modes. Override to use any key(s) your terminal emits.
CLAUDE_GHOST_MODEL	(unset — uses your Claude Code default)	Model alias (e.g. opus, sonnet) passed through to claude --model
CLAUDE_GHOST_PERMISSION_MODE	bypassPermissions	Forwarded as claude --permission-mode. By default Claude is allowed to do everything without asking — convenient but only safe in directories you trust. Set to default for normal prompting, or acceptEdits to allow file edits only.
CLAUDE_GHOST_DEBUG_KEYS	unset	When 1, prints the hex of every keystroke to stderr instead of doing anything else. Use to discover your terminal's actual toggle byte sequence.

Finding your terminal's toggle key

If F12 doesn't work in your terminal (some remote/embedded terminals intercept function keys):

$env:CLAUDE_GHOST_DEBUG_KEYS=1
claude-ghost
# press F12, Shift+Tab, or whatever key you want — note its hex
# Ctrl+C to quit, then:
Remove-Item Env:CLAUDE_GHOST_DEBUG_KEYS
$env:CLAUDE_GHOST_TOGGLE_KEYS="<hex>"
claude-ghost

Caveats

• Stealth is visual, not forensic. The wrapper runs claude as a child process, which is visible to anyone reading process lists, network traffic, or your shell history. Don't use this where you actually need privacy from technical observers.
• Permissions are bypassed by default. claude is launched with --permission-mode bypassPermissions so it can edit files, run commands, and use any tool without asking. This is required for -p mode to be usable (interactive approval prompts don't render). Only run claude-ghost in directories you trust, or set CLAUDE_GHOST_PERMISSION_MODE=default for normal prompting (you'll see denied tool calls in the output).
• No streaming partial-message rendering yet. Output appears as claude -p flushes, which is usually whole sentences or larger chunks.
• Legacy conhost is not supported. Use Windows Terminal.
• The transcript replay grows unbounded. Long sessions will redraw a lot of text on each toggle. Restart claude-ghost to clear.

Uninstall

# Remove the cmd shim
Remove-Item (Join-Path (npm config get prefix).Trim() 'claude-ghost.cmd')

# Remove the profile block (edit $PROFILE and delete the lines between
# `# >>> claude-ghost >>>` and `# <<< claude-ghost <<<`)

License

MIT