clientcast

Get paid faster for the work you already ship.

clientcast turns your Git commits into a client update email, delivers it for you, and tells you whether the reply was an approval, real feedback, or a request for additional work — with hours and dollars attached. Built on Claude Code. Free, MIT-licensed, and open source — no clientcast subscription or paid tier.

Quick start

npm install -g clientcast

cd path/to/your/project
clientcast init      # asks for client name/email, hourly rate, scope doc
clientcast send      # drafts an update from recent commits and delivers it
clientcast status    # see the client's reply and any scope-creep flags

See Requirements below — the CLI needs the claude binary on your PATH (Claude Pro/Max subscription, no API key).

Why this exists. Freelancers and agencies bleed hours on status updates and "can you also..." emails that quietly become unpaid work. clientcast reads your commits, drafts a plain-English update for the client, and when the client replies, Claude tells you whether it was approval, feedback, a concern, or scope creep — with hours and dollars attached.

What is clientcast?

clientcast is a command-line tool and MCP server that turns your git commits into an AI-drafted client update email, then reads the client's reply and tells you whether it was an approval, real feedback, or scope creep — with the extra work priced in hours and dollars.

Why clientcast

Most client-update tools stop at "here's what changed." clientcast reads the reply. When a client says "looks great, can you also add a Spanish version?" it flags that as additional work, estimates it against your scope doc and hourly rate, and hands you a Stripe payment link before you've written a single "sure, that'll be extra" email. That reply-classification-to-invoice loop is the part nobody else does.

clientcast vs the alternatives

	clientcast	Manual status emails	PM tools (Basecamp, Trello)	Time trackers (Harvest, Toggl)
Drafts the update from your actual commits	Yes	No	No	No
Reads the client reply and classifies it	Yes	No	No	No
Flags scope creep with hours + dollars	Yes	No	No	No
Turns flagged work into a payment link	Yes (Stripe)	No	No	No
Runs from your terminal / Claude Code	Yes	—	No	No

Honest limits: clientcast is not a full PM suite, not an accounting system, and not a CRM. It does one thing — the commit-to-update-to-paid loop — and hands billing off to Stripe.

When to use clientcast

• You ship client work in git and write status updates by hand
• Clients keep sneaking new work into "quick" replies and you keep eating the cost
• You want scope creep priced the moment it's asked for, not at invoice time
• You already use Claude Code and want the loop drivable from inside a session (MCP)
• You bill hourly or fixed-scope and need a paper trail of what was in scope

FAQ

Do I need an Anthropic API key? For local CLI use, no — clientcast spawns the claude binary and uses your Claude Pro/Max subscription. The hosted viewer needs ANTHROPIC_API_KEY because serverless functions can't spawn the CLI.

How does it decide something is scope creep? When a reply arrives, Claude classifies it (approve / feedback / additional-work / concern / mixed). If it's additional work, a second pass estimates hours against your scope.md and multiplies by your hourly rate. You see the number; you decide.

Does the client need an account or login? No. They get a no-login link, read the update, comment, and approve in the browser.

What actually gets uploaded when I send? The full update payload — commits, the drafted email, a snapshot of your scope doc, and your hourly rate — goes to a publicly-readable Vercel Blob URL. The URL holds only the update ID, but anyone with the link can read it. Keep secrets out of commit messages and scope docs.

Can I self-host the viewer? Yes. Deploy viewer/ to your own Vercel project and point clientcast at it with CLIENTCAST_VIEWER_URL.

Is clientcast free? Yes. It's MIT-licensed and open source — npm install -g clientcast. There's no clientcast subscription or per-seat fee. The only costs are pass-through services you already control: email delivery (Resend, free tier), invoicing (Stripe, per-transaction), and hosting the viewer (Vercel, free tier). Local drafting uses your existing Claude Pro/Max subscription.

Do I need Claude Code installed to use the CLI? Yes. The local CLI spawns the claude binary on your PATH to draft updates and classify replies, so Claude Code has to be installed and signed in. That's the design — it keeps your Pro/Max subscription as the only credential, with no separate API key for local use. The hosted viewer is the exception: it can't spawn the CLI, so it uses ANTHROPIC_API_KEY directly.

What languages or stacks does it work with? Any of them. clientcast reads your git commit history, not your source code, so it's language- and framework-agnostic — a Rails app, a Next.js site, a Python service, and a static HTML build all work the same way. If it's a git repo, clientcast can draft updates from it.

What you get

• clientcast — CLI that reads recent commits and drafts a client update with Claude
• Auto-email delivery — clientcast send ships the update straight to your client's inbox via Resend (no manual copy-paste)
• Hosted approval page — a no-login link your client opens to read, comment, and approve
• Live preview embed — point at your Vercel/Netlify deploy and the update page shows the actual site, not just commits
• Reply classifier — Claude tags every reply as approve, feedback, additional-work, concern, or mixed
• Additional-work flagger — when a reply asks for new work, you get an estimate in hours and dollars based on your hourly rate and original scope doc
• One-click Stripe invoicing — when additional work is flagged, click "Approve & invoice" to generate a Stripe payment link, in-page, no leaving the viewer
• Reply notifications — Slack webhook or email-back to you the moment your client replies
• Multi-project dashboard — /projects/<token> lists every update for a project with totals, status, and flagged work in one view
• clientcast-mcp — MCP server so Claude Code agents can drive the whole loop from inside any session

Requirements

• Node 20.5+ (required by the existing subprocess dependency)
• Claude Code CLI installed and signed in (claude command on PATH) — uses your Pro/Max subscription, no API key needed for the CLI
• A git repository
• (For email delivery) RESEND_API_KEY env var — get one free at resend.com. Without it, clientcast send still uploads and prints the URL — you just have to email it yourself.

The hosted viewer needs these deployment env vars:

• BLOB_READ_WRITE_TOKEN (Vercel Blob) — required
• ANTHROPIC_API_KEY — required (the viewer can't spawn claude so it hits the API directly)
• RESEND_API_KEY — optional, enables reply-notification emails to the developer
• STRIPE_SECRET_KEY — optional, enables one-click invoicing on flagged additional work

Install

npm install -g clientcast

Quickstart

cd path/to/your/project
clientcast init
# Project name: Acme Marketing Site
# Client name: Bob
# Client email: bob@acme.com
# Hourly rate: 120
# Scope doc path: ./scope.md

# Make some commits...

clientcast send
# Reading commits...
# Drafting update from 8 commits...
# Uploading...
# ✓ Update ready: https://clientcast-landing.vercel.app/u/8af2k3lq01
# Send this link to Bob for review.

# Bob replies on the page. Then:

clientcast status
# [replied] Acme Marketing Site · 1 scope-creep flag (~$960)
# Reply: "Looks good. Can you also add a Spanish version of the site?"
# [scope_creep · high] Bob
#   Asked for a new Spanish translation, not in original scope.
#   Action items:
#     - Translate site into Spanish
# Scope creep flagged — 1 item, ~$960 total:
# - **[MAJOR]** Add Spanish version of site — ~8h, $960
#   _Translation and copy-flow not in scope.md._

CLI commands

Command	What it does
clientcast init	Initialize the project — creates .clientcast.json (asks for client info, hourly rate, scope, dev email, preview URL, Slack webhook)
clientcast send [--since <ref>]	Draft + upload an update from recent commits
clientcast preview	Same as send --dry-run
clientcast list [--all]	List recent updates
clientcast status [<id>]	Show status of an update (latest if id omitted)
clientcast export <id> [--format markdown|email]	Export as markdown or email format
clientcast config	Show current project config

Useful flags

• --since <ref> — git ref or date to start from (default: all commits)
• --model <sonnet\|opus\|haiku> — pick model (default sonnet)
• --limit <n> — max commits to include (default 50)
• --no-email — skip auto-delivery, just upload + return URL
• --from <addr> — override sender on the email
• --preview-url <url> — override the live preview URL embedded in this update

Reply notifications

Hosted Slack updates are blocked until webhook destinations can be stored privately. Choose email or notifyChannel: "none" in .clientcast.json to send hosted updates. Existing public updates that contain a webhook also reject further saves. If you previously sent a Slack-enabled update, rotate that webhook: its credential was included in the public update payload.

When a client replies, Claude classifies the reply server-side and pings you. Pick one channel during clientcast init:

• Slack — configuration is retained locally, but hosted sends are currently blocked.
• Email — provide your dev email. You get a styled HTML email with the reply and flag summary.

If neither is set, replies are silent (you check clientcast status).

Stripe — turn flagged work into paid work

Add STRIPE_SECRET_KEY to your viewer deployment, set stripeEnabled: true in .clientcast.json, and any flagged additional work in the client view gets an "Approve & invoice $X" button. Click it → Stripe payment link generated → client pays → you get notified by Stripe. The flag stores the paymentLink so reloading the page shows a "Pay $X →" CTA instead.

This is the closed loop: git commit → AI summary → client reply → flagged work → payment link → money in bank.

Multi-project dashboard

Every project gets a unique projectToken at init. Visit <viewerUrl>/projects/<token> to see every update for that project — status, flagged work totals, reply counts. Bookmark it for clients you have ongoing work with.

MCP server — drive clientcast from Claude Code

Add this to ~/.claude.json under mcpServers:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "clientcast": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "clientcast-mcp"
    }
  }
}

Restart Claude Code. From inside any session you'll have 5 tools:

• client_init({ projectName, clientName, clientEmail, hourlyRate, scope? })
• client_send({ since?, model?, dryRun? })
• client_status({ updateId? })
• client_list({ limit?, all? })
• client_export({ updateId, format? })

Now Claude can wrap up your work and ping the client without leaving the editor.

How it works

1. CLI reads commits via simple-git (with stats: files changed, insertions, deletions)
2. Spawns claude subprocess with a draft-update prompt that includes commits + your scope doc
3. Saves the update payload (commits + draft + scope doc snapshot + hourly rate snapshot) to Vercel Blob
4. Hosted viewer at clientcast-landing.vercel.app/u/<id> renders the update with a reply form
5. Reply submission hits the viewer's API route → Anthropic API classifies it → if scope creep is detected, the flagger runs against the saved scope doc → cost estimate added to the payload
6. clientcast status reads back the updated payload

The viewer uses the Anthropic API directly (server-side env var) because Vercel functions can't spawn the claude binary. The CLI uses the subprocess to keep your Pro/Max subscription as the only credential needed for local use.

Privacy

By default everything is local until you send:

• Config lives in .clientcast.json in your project
• Local copies of past updates live in ~/.clientcast/updates/
• Nothing leaves your machine until you run clientcast send

When you send, the entire update payload (commits + draft + scope doc + hourly rate) is uploaded to a publicly readable Vercel Blob URL. The shareable URL contains only the update ID — but anyone with the URL can read the payload. Don't include secrets in commit messages or scope docs.

Self-hosted viewer

Deploy viewer/ to your own Vercel project:

cd viewer
vercel --prod

Then set on the deployment:

• BLOB_READ_WRITE_TOKEN — from your Vercel Blob store
• ANTHROPIC_API_KEY — from console.anthropic.com

And point clientcast at it:

export CLIENTCAST_VIEWER_URL=https://your-deployment.vercel.app
clientcast init

Development

Use Node 20.6+ for development. The source MCP test uses Node's module registration API, introduced in 20.6.

git clone https://github.com/nikolas-sapa/clientcast
cd clientcast
npm install
npm test
npm run build

# CLI dev
npm run dev -- send --dry-run

# Viewer dev
npm run viewer

Contributing

Bug reports, feature requests, and PRs are welcome. See CONTRIBUTING.md for dev setup, repo layout, and PR expectations. Please also read the Code of Conduct. Security issues should go to niksapa150@gmail.com, not a public issue — see SECURITY.md.

License

MIT — see LICENSE. clientcast itself is free and open source; the only costs are pass-through services you choose to enable (Resend, Stripe, Vercel).