claude-statusline

A simple and effective status line for Claude CLI. It uses the JSON pipes to stdin and has no dependencies beyond bash and node.

Design notes

• information must be relevant: Each piece of displayed info has direct impact on the next prompt.
• No extra bloat: Renders from one payload. Nothing to install
• Half screen width considered: The line is kept deliberately short so it stays readable in split pane terminals. Running several panes side by side (Windows Terminal Ctrl+Shift+D, tmux splits) shouldn't lose info.
• Density->Clarity: Segments are encoded in the fewest characters that stay unambiguous. e.g label:value, glyphs and arrows over words (→2h14m, not "resets in 2h 14m"). Density serves clarity
• Colour coding: Text colour carries meaning as well. The traffic light thresholds on context and rate limits are readable. Main branch is red.

Details

Segment	Meaning
main / feature-x	Current git branch. Red on main/master as a commit guard.
Opus 4.8	Active model (display_name, straight from the payload).
E:high	Reasoning effort level.
+120/-34	Lines added / removed this session (keep grounded with code changes).
$0.42	Session cost in USD (estimated based on api pricing).
ctx:38%░░	Context-window usage + mini bar (percentage is relative to the real context_window_size, so it reads right on 200k and 1M models). Green under 15%, amber under 50%, red beyond.
5h:61%▓▓│░→2h14m	Five-hour rate-limit usage, a pacing marker, and time until reset.
7d:41%▓░│░→2d23h	Seven-day (weekly) rate-limit usage — often the binding limit on Max plans — pacing marker and reset.

Requirements

• bash
• node on your PATH

Install

1. Copy statusline-command.sh to ~/.claude/statusline-command.sh.

2. Point Claude Code at it in ~/.claude/settings.json:

   {
     "statusLine": {
       "type": "command",
       "command": "bash ~/.claude/statusline-command.sh",
       "refreshInterval": 10
     }
   }

   refreshInterval (seconds) re-runs the script on a timer as well as on events — without it the reset countdowns freeze while the session sits idle.

3. Restart Claude Code.

Windows

Claude Code runs the command through bash (Git Bash / WSL). ~ isn't always expanded, so use an absolute path with forward slashes:

{
  "statusLine": {
    "type": "command",
    "command": "bash C:/Users/YOU/.claude/statusline-command.sh",
    "refreshInterval": 10
  }
}

Licence

MIT — see LICENSE.