Earnings paused

Open VS Code and you're earning again

Ads and earnings are managed entirely by the idlepay editor extension. When no VS Code window is open, nothing fetches ads and nothing records earnings — so your status line pauses instead of showing stale ads nobody is paid for.

To resume: open VS Code (a background window is fine) and keep using Claude Code as usual. Ads — and earning — come back on their own within a minute.

Why it works this way

The only thing idlepay adds to your Claude Code configuration is a small local script — and we keep it boring on purpose:

• No network. It renders the ad the extension last saved to a local file. It never calls any server.
• No credentials. Your device token never passes through it.
• No access to your work. It never reads your prompts, your code, or your conversations — only the timestamp of the session transcript, to tell “actively using Claude” from “a terminal left open”.
• No self-update. It only changes when the extension updates, through the extension's own channel.

The flip side of a script that can't phone home: when VS Code is closed, it has no way to fetch ads or prove activity — so it pauses. That trade is the security model working as intended. Audit the script yourself: ~/.idlepay/idlepay-statusline.mjs, about fifty lines of logic — or read the full security model.