GitHub Copilot usage in your menu bar — GitHub's own numbers, not a guess

Copilot's premium-request allowance is one of the least visible limits in any AI coding tool. There's a number somewhere in a GitHub billing settings page, and unless you go check it, the first sign you're close is Copilot quietly falling back to a cheaper model or refusing a premium request mid-session. Token Gauge puts that number where you're already looking — the menu bar on Mac, the system tray on Windows — so it stops being a surprise.

How Copilot's limits work

GitHub Copilot plans come with a monthly allowance of included premium requests (GitHub calls it "monthly credits" on newer plans, "premium requests" on legacy annual ones). Every completion from a premium model draws down that allowance; once it's spent, requests either cost extra or stop, depending on your plan's overage settings. The allowance resets monthly, and GitHub tracks the balance server-side — the same data your Copilot dashboard in VS Code reads from.

What Token Gauge shows for Copilot

Token Gauge reads that same billing endpoint and shows GitHub's own reported percentage — not an estimate, not a token count we've converted into a guess. The headline card reads "Monthly Credits" (or "Premium Requests" on legacy plans), with a status line like "GitHub-reported: 13 of 1500 monthly credits used · Copilot Individual." Underneath, per-model rows show which models you've actually been spending your allowance on. Where GitHub's credits meter isn't exposed for a plan, Token Gauge falls back to real per-model consumption figures instead of inventing a percentage it can't back up — that's the whole "no invented numbers" rule applied to Copilot specifically.

Setup is close to zero-configuration on Mac: Token Gauge looks for a manual token first, then a Copilot editor sign-in already on your machine, then the GitHub CLI if you're signed in with gh. On Windows, editor sign-in discovery isn't wired up yet, so sign in with gh or set a personal access token to connect Copilot. If none of those are present it'll ask for a personal access token as a fallback.

Local reads, honest scope

Token Gauge reads Copilot usage from GitHub's authenticated billing API using credentials already on your system — never your repositories, prompts, or completions. That read doesn't consume any of your allowance. Over the network it makes only three kinds of calls — each provider's own usage and sign-in endpoints, one Lemon Squeezy license check, and a check for app updates; it isn't fully offline, but your code and prompts never leave the machine because there's nowhere for that data to go.