CueTray

How to use CueTray with Claude Code

By Mary Hill · Updated October 24, 2026 · For CueTray 1.0

CueTray saves a screenshot and an instruction together as a numbered cue inside your project. Claude Code picks cues up with the /next-cue command, one at a time, whenever you’re ready. This guide covers setup, each part of the window, the command, how cues are stored, and fixes for the problems people run into.

Install

You need Windows 10 or 11 (64-bit) and Claude Code.

  1. Download the installer from cuetray.com and run it. It installs for your Windows user only, so there’s no administrator prompt, and adds CueTray to the Start menu. The installer is signed by Made4Uo LLC. Because CueTray is new, Windows may still show “Windows protected your PC” for a while: click More info, check that the publisher is Made4Uo LLC, then click Run anyway. Only run an installer you got through cuetray.com.
  2. CueTray opens with a short How CueTray works panel: snip, write what to do, hand it to your AI tool, keep the line in order. Get started closes it for good; How CueTray works in the tray menu opens it again. Closing the window keeps CueTray running in the tray: click the tray icon to show or hide the window, and right-click it for the menu or to quit.
  3. Open settings with the gear at the top of the window (Settings in the sidebar if the window is wide), then click Install next to your AI tool: Claude Code is always listed, and Codex and Gemini CLI appear when they’re on your computer. This adds the cue command to that tool.
  4. Optional: switch on Start with Windows so the snip shortcut is always ready.

Save your first cue

  1. In the project list (at the top of the small window, or in the sidebar of the wide one), pick the project the cue is for.
  2. Press Ctrl+Alt+S and drag a box around what you want to show.
  3. Type what should change in the box at the bottom of the window.
  4. Press Enter (Shift+Enter starts a new line). The cue appears under Up next with its number, starting at #001.

No screenshot needed? Press Ctrl+Alt+C anywhere in Windows. CueTray comes to the front with the cursor in the cue box, ready to type. Press it again while CueTray is in front to hide the window. Clicking the tray icon does the same.

To speak instead of typing, click in the cue box and press Win+H: Windows’ own voice typing writes what you say into it.

Small and wide window

CueTray has two layouts. The button in the title bar switches between them, and CueTray remembers the size you leave it at.

  • Small window: the project list is at the top, and the gear opens settings.
  • Wide window: once the window is wider than 760 pixels, a sidebar appears on the left. It lists your projects with how many cues are waiting in each, plus New cue, Add project folder, Settings and Help. Until you enter a license, the bottom of the sidebar shows how many trial days are left, with a button to buy (see Trial and license). In this layout, settings open from Settings in the sidebar instead of the gear.

Snip a screenshot

  • Ctrl+Alt+S works anywhere in Windows. The screen dims at once on every monitor and you can drag a box on any of them right away; the picture freezes within about a second. CueTray’s own window stays visible and is part of the screenshot.
  • Click once without dragging to take the whole screen.
  • Esc or a right-click cancels.
  • Snip again before saving and the new screenshot joins the same cue.
  • You can also paste with Ctrl+V or click the Clipboard button in the box: text on the clipboard goes into the box at the cursor and a picture is attached, so a cue you copied with Copy comes back with both. Or drop image files onto the box at the bottom.
  • The Snip button in the window does the same as the shortcut.

Holding the shortcut down, or pasting the same image twice, adds it only once.

Draw on a screenshot

Click a screenshot in the cue you’re writing to open the draw window. The screenshot opens on its own backdrop, so you can always see where it ends, and it shrinks to fit when the window is smaller.

Key Does
B Box
A Arrow
P Pen
H Highlighter
E Eraser: drag across a mark to remove it (Ctrl+Z brings it back)
1 to 4 The four preset colors: red, yellow, blue and green until you change them
5 Any color: the fifth swatch opens the Windows color picker the first time, then keeps the color you chose
Ctrl+Z Undo the last mark
Ctrl+Y or Ctrl+Shift+Z Redo what Undo took back, including marks an eraser removed. Drawing or erasing something new clears it
Enter Keep the drawing
Esc Close without changes

To change one of the four preset colors, click it again while it’s selected, or right-click it, and pick any color in the Windows color picker. CueTray remembers it for later drawings, and its number key picks the new color.

Keeping the drawing replaces the screenshot in your cue with the marked-up version, so Claude sees exactly what you drew.

To draw on every snip without clicking it first, switch on Draw on each snip right away in settings. Each snip then opens in the draw window on the screen you snipped from: Done adds the drawing to the cue, and Skip (or Esc) adds the snip as it was.

Pick the project

The project list fills itself from the folders you have open in VS Code, Cursor, Windsurf or VSCodium, including every folder of an open workspace. It also lists folders you’ve used with Claude Code or Codex, from their session history: any that already have cues, plus any used in the last 30 days. For any other folder, use Add a project folder…. A project you’ve saved a cue to stays in the list after you close it in your editor.

Projects you pin come first, then Recent (the five you picked most recently, latest first), then the rest. To pin one, hover it in the sidebar and click the pin, or pick Pin “name” to the top in the small window’s project list; the same button unpins it. A pinned project stays in the list even after your editors stop reporting it. Until something is pinned or recent, it’s one plain list.

To hide a project you don’t use, hover it in the sidebar and click its x, or pick Hide “name” from this list in the small window’s project list. It stays hidden even while an editor or AI tool still reports it, it’s unpinned and dropped from Recent, and its cues aren’t touched. To bring one back, click Show next to it under Hidden projects in settings, or add the folder by hand or save a cue to it. Show all brings every hidden project back. A project you bring back stays in the list like a folder you added by hand, even when no editor or AI tool reports it any more.

Choose the same folder Claude Code runs in, usually the folder you opened in your editor. That’s where CueTray creates the .cuetray folder, and where /next-cue looks for it.

Cue numbers

Every cue gets a number when you save it: #001, #002, and so on, separately for each project. The number stays with the cue when you edit it and after it’s done, and it’s never reused, even if you delete a cue. So when you tell Claude “#004 is still broken”, that means one specific cue.

Cues go next in number order until you change it. To change which cue goes next, pick a card up anywhere in Up next and drag it: the other cards slide aside to open a gap, and letting go drops it there. Esc puts it back where it was. On a touch screen, drag it by the grip under its number. You can also tab to the grip (it appears when you hover the card) and use the arrow keys to move the cue one place at a time. Its number stays the same.

Put a cue on hold

Hover a waiting cue and click its pause button to hold it. It stays in Up next with its number and an On hold tag, but a plain /next-cue passes over it. Click the play button to resume it. You can still hand a held cue to Claude by its number, for example /next-cue 5.

A held cue keeps its place in line. To list held cues below the waiting ones instead, switch on Put on-hold cues at the bottom in settings. A cue you resume goes back to its place in line either way.

Find a cue

Once a project has cues, a search box and an All / Up next / Done filter appear at the top. Each filter tab shows how many cues it holds.

  • Type words from the message to find a cue. Every word has to appear, in any order.
  • Type a number such as #4 or 4 to find cue #004.
  • Ctrl+F jumps to the search box and Esc clears it.

Hand cues to Claude Code

Run /next-cue in Claude Code, inside the project. The copy button beside /next-cue in CueTray puts the command on your clipboard, and the cue a plain /next-cue will take next has a Next for Claude tag.

Codex and Gemini CLI can pick cues up too, once you’ve clicked Install next to them in settings. In Codex the command starts with $: $next-cue, $next-cue 4, $next-cue list. In Gemini CLI it’s /next-cue, the same as in Claude Code.

You type What happens
/next-cue Claude takes the first cue in line that isn’t on hold (lowest number first unless you’ve dragged them into another order)
/next-cue 4 Claude takes cue #004, even if it’s on hold (#4 and 004 work too)
/next-cue list Claude shows what’s waiting and what’s on hold, and starts nothing
/next-cue footer Claude takes the cue whose message mentions “footer”; if several do, it asks which

When Claude picks a cue up, it:

  1. reads your message,

  2. first shows which cue it took and quotes its message, so you can see in the chat what it’s about to do, for example:

    Picked up #004 (1 screenshot). 2 more waiting, 1 on hold.
> Hide expired coupons in the cart. SPRING10 still shows on the tea towel.

  3. opens every screenshot in the cue,

  4. moves the cue to Done so it isn’t picked up twice,

  5. then works on it as if you had just typed the message and attached the screenshots.

If CueTray is open, you see it happen: the cue lights up green with a Picked up tag and slides out of Up next, and the next cue moves up with the Next for Claude tag. If you’ve turned off animations in Windows, the cue just gets a green outline. If the cue is scrolled out of view, a short “Picked up” message above the cue box tells you instead.

Claude takes one cue per run and doesn’t start the next one on its own. Run /next-cue again when you’re ready.

If the next cue has nothing to do with the last one, run /clear first. Your cues are on disk, so clearing loses nothing but the old conversation, and a shorter conversation costs fewer tokens on every step.

If nothing is waiting but some cues are on hold, Claude lists the held ones and tells you how to pick one by number. If you ask for a cue that’s already done, Claude says so instead of doing it again.

Use cues with other AI tools

Claude Code, Codex and Gemini CLI take cues with the command above. Every other AI tool, such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Cursor or Copilot, works through the Copy button on each cue and the paste cue shortcut:

  1. Click Copy on the cue.
  2. Click in the AI tool’s message box.
  3. Press Ctrl+Alt+P. CueTray pastes the message, then the screenshot.

A cue with several screenshots arrives as one picture, stacked top to bottom. The shortcut pastes the cue you copied last; pressed before you’ve copied one, CueTray reminds you to click Copy first. Afterwards the screenshot is what’s left on the clipboard.

A plain Ctrl+V after Copy still works, but chat apps usually keep only one of the two, the message or the screenshot. That’s why the shortcut pastes them one after the other.

In a terminal. A terminal can’t take a picture, but an AI tool running in one, such as Claude Code, Codex or Gemini CLI, can open files on your computer. So when the window in front is a terminal (Windows Terminal, PowerShell, Command Prompt and other common ones), Ctrl+Alt+P pastes the message with the screenshots’ file paths under it, as text, and that text is what’s left on the clipboard. In the cue’s own project, /next-cue is still the quicker route.

The terminal inside VS Code and other editors looks to CueTray like the editor itself. There, press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+P instead: it always pastes the message with the file paths, whatever window is in front.

If you’d rather attach the screenshots yourself, click the folder button on the cue to open them, then add them the way your AI tool normally takes images.

Copy doesn’t change the cue. Click Mark done afterwards if you’ve handed it over.

Edit, finish, restore and delete

A card shows the first three lines of its message. If there’s more, the third line ends with Show more: click it to read the whole message, and Show less at the end of the message to close it again.

Hover a cue, or tab into it with the keyboard, to see its buttons:

  • Edit: loads the cue into the box at the bottom so you can change the text or the screenshots. It keeps its number. The box turns violet while you edit, and the cue’s card in the list is marked Editing.
  • Mark done: moves it to Done without sending it anywhere.
  • Restore (on done cues): puts it back in Up next.
  • Open folder: shows the cue’s files in Explorer.
  • Delete: asks once more, then moves the cue and its files to the Recycle Bin.

Done lists cues by when they were finished, most recent first, so the cue /next-cue just took is at the top. Each done card shows when it was done, such as “Done 5 min ago”. A cue you restore and finish again moves back to the top.

To delete several cues at once, click Select next to the All / Up next / Done filter, tick the cues (or click Select all for every cue shown), then click Delete in the bar above the cue box and click it again to confirm. Cancel or Esc leaves select mode. Clear all in the Done heading deletes every done cue, also after a second click.

Deleted cues go to the Windows Recycle Bin, so you can restore one from there if you deleted it by mistake. A cue on a drive without a Recycle Bin, such as some network drives, is deleted for good.

If Claude picks up a cue while you’re editing it, saving keeps your edit as a new cue instead of losing it.

How cues are stored

Cues are ordinary files in a .cuetray folder inside your project. Each cue is a folder holding your message, exactly as you typed it, and its screenshots. Cues on hold and finished cues are kept in their own folders next to the waiting ones. The .cuetray folder is kept out of your git commits.

Open folder on a cue shows its files in Explorer. You can open, edit or delete them directly; CueTray picks up changes on its own.

Settings

Open settings with the gear next to the project list (in the wide window, Settings in the sidebar), or with Change shortcut and settings… in the tray menu.

Settings are in six groups. Click a group’s heading to fold it away, and again to unfold it; CueTray remembers which ones you folded. If the window is too short to show them all, the panel scrolls, and the Settings title and its close button stay at the top.

Shortcuts and startup

  • Snip shortcut: click it and press a new combination. If another app already uses it, CueTray says so and keeps the old one.
  • Open CueTray shortcut: Ctrl+Alt+C by default. Change it the same way as the snip shortcut. CueTray warns you if another app already uses it.
  • Paste cue shortcut: Ctrl+Alt+P by default. It pastes the cue you last copied: in a chat, the message, then the screenshot; in a terminal, the message with the screenshots’ file paths (see Use cues with other AI tools). Visual Studio (Attach to Process) and JetBrains IDEs (Introduce Parameter) use the same combination, and while CueTray runs the shortcut goes to CueTray, so pick another one here if you rely on theirs.
  • Paste cue with file paths: Ctrl+Alt+Shift+P by default. Always pastes the message with the screenshots’ file paths, as text, for a terminal CueTray can’t tell apart from the app around it, such as the one inside VS Code.
  • No two of the four shortcuts can be the same.
  • Start with Windows: starts CueTray in the tray when you sign in. The same switch is in the tray menu.

Cues

  • Draw on each snip right away: off by default, so a snip goes straight into the cue box. Switched on, each snip opens in the draw window first, even while CueTray is hidden in the tray.
  • Save a cue with: Enter (default) or Ctrl+Enter, if you’d rather Enter add a line.
  • Put on-hold cues at the bottom: off by default, so held cues stay in their place in line. Switched on, Up next lists every waiting cue first and the held ones below them. It doesn’t change which cue /next-cue takes.

Projects

  • Hidden projects: every project you’ve hidden from the list, with its folder (hover to see the full path) and a Show button that puts it back. Show all appears when two or more are hidden.

AI tools

  • Cue command: an Install button for each AI tool on your computer (Claude Code, and Codex or Gemini CLI if you have them) that installs or updates the command for that tool.

Privacy and license

  • Usage counts: sends anonymous daily counts, only while it’s on. The privacy page lists exactly what is sent.
  • License: shows how many trial days are left, opens checkout with Buy, and takes your license key.

About

  • CueTray and its version: shows where updating stands, for example “You have the latest version. Checked at 11:20 AM.” Check now looks for a new version right away. Once one has downloaded, the button becomes Restart to update.
  • Website: Guide opens this page, and cuetray.com the home page.
  • Send feedback: Write an email opens a draft to the developer in your mail app, with CueTray’s version and your Windows version at the bottom. If no email app is set up on your computer, CueTray copies the address instead, so you can paste it into your webmail. The copy button next to it copies the address, if you use webmail. Send feedback… in the tray menu opens the same draft.

Trial and license

Every feature is free for 14 days, with no card or account. After that CueTray costs $14.99, paid once. One license covers one computer; using CueTray on another computer needs another license.

  • Three days before the trial ends, a reminder appears above the cue box. Later hides it until CueTray restarts.
  • When the trial ends, every saved cue still opens, copies, edits and goes to Claude. Snipping and saving new cues wait for a license.
  • In the wide window, the bottom of the sidebar shows how many trial days are left, with a bar that runs down as they pass and turns amber in the last three days. Once a license is entered, CueTray’s version shows there instead.
  • To buy, click Buy in settings, or Buy once for $14.99 at the bottom of the wide window’s sidebar and then Pay $14.99 on cuetray.com, or go to cuetray.com/buy. After paying, you land on a page that shows your license key.
  • To activate, paste the key under License in settings, or under Already bought? after clicking Buy once for $14.99 in the sidebar, and click Activate. While a key is entered, CueTray checks about once a day whether the purchase was refunded; offline, the key keeps working.
  • Lost the key? Open the thanks page again from your bookmark or browser history; it shows the same key every time.
  • Refunds: within 14 days of buying, write to info@made4uo.com from the email address you paid with. A refunded key stops working, and CueTray says “Your purchase was refunded, so its license key no longer works.” Your saved cues keep working, as after the trial; new cues need a license again.

Updates

CueTray updates itself. About 30 seconds after it starts, and every 4 hours after that, it checks for a new version and downloads it in the background. When one is ready, the window says so (for example “CueTray 1.0.1 is ready. It installs the next time CueTray restarts.”) with Restart now and Later, and the tray menu shows Restart to update to 1.0.1. If you choose Later, it installs the next time you quit CueTray. Your cues and settings stay as they are.

To look for a new version right away, click Check now under About in settings. The same row shows when CueTray last checked, and how far a download has got.

Fixes for common problems

A shortcut doesn’t work. Another app probably owns that key combination. Settings shows a warning when CueTray couldn’t register it; record a different one there.

/next-cue says there are no saved cues. Claude Code has to be running in the folder you picked in CueTray, the one that contains .cuetray. If you opened a subfolder or a parent folder in your editor, pick that same folder in CueTray, or open the right one.

Claude says a cue was already picked up. It’s in Done. Use Restore on it in CueTray if you want Claude to take it again.

A project is missing from the list. The list shows folders open in VS Code, Cursor, Windsurf and VSCodium, folders you’ve used with Claude Code or Codex (in the last 30 days, or that already have cues), and any you’ve added. Anything else, such as a folder you only use with Gemini CLI, needs Add a project folder… at the bottom of the list. If you hid it, click Show next to it under Hidden projects in settings.

CueTray isn’t in the tray after a restart. Switch on Start with Windows in settings or in the tray menu.

CueTray says the key isn’t a license key. Copy the whole key from the thanks page. Spaces and line breaks picked up while copying don’t matter.

Something else, or an idea? Click Write an email under Send feedback in settings, or Send feedback… in the tray menu, and attach a screenshot if it helps. Or write to info@made4uo.com.

Ready to try it? Download CueTray for Windows, or read what it stores and reads on your computer.