Stop hitting your 5h cap. Spread your day across more windows.
For devs who hit Claude Pro/Max cap daily. Get up to 33% more cap from the same plan. No cloud. No credentials. One install.
/plugin install claude-5h-window-spread@dpt-plugins
/window-spread setup17:20 on a Tuesday. 40 minutes before quitting time. You're mid-debug, one fix from done. Cap hits. Locked out. Can't ship the change, can't finish the thread, can't even reply to your colleague's question.
Window resets at 19:00. By then you're at dinner. Tomorrow you'll start over.
Claude Pro/Max gives you a 5-hour rolling window from your first message. One window. Cap typically lands ~40 minutes before the window expires when you're working hard. If your afternoon window started at 12:20, it dies at 17:20 — just before you stop. The last hour of your day evaporates.
| Time | What happens |
|---|---|
| 08:30 | Morning message. W1 opens 8:30-13:30. |
| 12:20 | Lunch. W1 expires by 13:30 — already past lunch boundary. |
| 13:00 | Back at desk. W2 opens whenever you send the first afternoon message. |
| 17:20 | Cap hit. Locked out. 40 min of dense afternoon debug ruined. |
| 18:00 | You walk away. Last hour of progress: lost. |
| 19:00 | W2 finally resets. You're not at the keyboard. |
This is the heavy-use dev day on Pro/Max. The lockouts always seem to land at the worst time.
Send 4 silent pings throughout the day. Each one anchors a fresh 5h window.
gantt
title One workday — natural usage
dateFormat HH:mm
axisFormat %H:%M
section Work
Block 1 (3h50) :work1, 08:30, 230m
Block 2 (4h) :work2, 14:00, 240m
Evening (3h) :work3, 20:00, 180m
section Windows
W1 — 4h crammed :crit, w1, 08:30, 300m
W2 — 4h crammed :crit, w2, 14:00, 300m
W3 — 3h evening :w3, 20:00, 300m
Each window gets a full block. W1 and W2 are at HIGH cap risk — 4h of dense work compressed into one 5h window each.
gantt
title One workday — with claude-5h-window-spread
dateFormat HH:mm
axisFormat %H:%M
section Work
Block 1 (3h50) :work1, 08:30, 230m
Block 2 (4h) :work2, 14:00, 240m
Evening (3h) :work3, 20:00, 180m
section Windows
W1 — 2h30 work :done, w1, 06:00, 300m
W2 — 3h20 work :done, w2, 11:00, 300m
W3 — 3h work :done, w3, 16:00, 300m
W4 — 2h evening :done, w4, 21:00, 300m
Block 1 splits at 11:00 (W1 → W2). Block 2 splits at 16:00 (W2 → W3). Evening splits at 21:00 (W3 → W4). No window ever absorbs an entire work block. Up to 33% more effective cap.
/plugin marketplace add Digital-Process-Tools/claude-marketplace
/plugin install claude-5h-window-spread@dpt-plugins
That's it. Works on macOS, Linux, Windows. Uses local cron — no cloud, no API keys, no auth dance.
/window-spread setup
The skill asks your work pattern in plain language:
Skill: What time do you start work?
You: 8h30
Skill: Lunch break?
You: 12h20 to 14h
Skill: When do you stop?
You: 18h, then evening session 20-23
Skill: Weekdays only?
You: yes
Optimal: 4 pings at 6 / 11 / 16 / 21
Max work per window: 3h20 (vs 4h natural)
Apply?
Confirm. Done. Pings install via launchd / cron / Task Scheduler.
/window-spread status
Lists installed pings with next fire times.
Re-run /window-spread setup with a different work pattern. Install is destructive-replace — old pings are removed before new ones are written.
Claude Pro/Max windows are 5 hours from your first message. They reset only when expired.
The math:
- You can have at most 24 / 5 ≈ 4-5 windows per day
- Each window has its own cap (messages + tokens)
- The longer you cram into one window, the higher cap-hit risk
The algorithm:
- Take your work blocks
- Enumerate ping schedules with 1-5 pings, every consecutive pair ≥5h apart (Anthropic's window-reset rule). Windows can have gaps — your laptop just sits idle between blocks.
- Validate each block is fully covered by either a single window or a contiguous run of windows
- Pick the schedule that minimizes max work-hours per window, then fewest pings, then prefers round hours (HH:00)
The result: pings placed wherever they help most, possibly with idle gaps. Each work block split as evenly as the 5h granularity allows.
For someone with two shifts (5-10am + 6-10pm), this produces something like 02:30 / 07:30 / 15:00 / 20:00 — gap from 12:30 to 15:00 is dead time, and that's fine.
| Tool | Local | Cross-platform | Multi-window spread | Analytics |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| claude-5h-window-spread | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ (4-window math) | ✅ |
vdsmon/claude-warmup |
❌ (GH Actions) | ✅ | ❌ (single ping) | ❌ |
nomadictuba2005/claude-session-keeper |
✅ | ✅ | ❌ (5h interval) | ❌ |
| Anthropic Routines | ❌ (cloud) | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Anthropic Desktop Tasks | ✅ | ❌ (no Linux) | ❌ | ❌ |
- Doesn't reduce token usage. Cap is the same per window — you just have more windows.
- Doesn't bypass any limit. Uses the windows exactly as designed.
- Doesn't run when your machine is asleep. Local cron requires the laptop awake.
- You never hit the 5h cap
- You only use Claude Code casually (a few messages a day)
- You can't keep your machine awake during your work hours
For everyone else who's been locked out at 11am — keep reading.
Pure stdlib Python. No build step, no deps, no virtualenv required.
python3 -m unittest tests.test_window_spread79 tests cover time parsing, block parsing, simulation math, the optimization algorithm, the natural baseline, and the compute subcommand end-to-end.
A pre-push hook at .githooks/pre-push runs the full test suite before any push. Enable once per clone:
git config core.hooksPath .githooksFailed tests block the push. Bypass with git push --no-verify (discouraged).
python3 scripts/window-spread.py compute --blocks "8:30-12:20,14:00-18:00,20:00-23:00"Outputs JSON. Pipe to jq for pretty-printing or to python3 scripts/window-spread.py install - to apply via claude-code-scheduler.
Source-available. Commercial redistribution prohibited. See LICENSE.
Built by Digital Process Tools in Toulouse, France.
"I hit my limit on a Tuesday afternoon, mid-debug. If this plugin had been installed, the lockout wouldn't have happened. So I built it."