Set up a status line

Use the /statusline command to have Claude Code generate a script for you, or manually create a script and add it to your settings.

Use the /statusline command

The /statusline command accepts natural language instructions describing what you want displayed. Claude Code generates a script file in ~/.claude/ and updates your settings automatically:

/statusline show model name and context percentage with a progress bar

Approve the file edit prompts if Claude Code asks for permission during setup.

Manually configure a status line

Add a statusLine field to your user settings (~/.claude/settings.json, where ~ is your home directory) or project settings. Set type to "command" and point command to a script path or an inline shell command. For a full walkthrough of creating a script, see Build a status line step by step.

{
  "statusLine": {
    "type": "command",
    "command": "~/.claude/statusline.sh",
    "padding": 2
  }
}

The command field runs in a shell, so you can also use inline commands instead of a script file. This example uses jq to parse the JSON input and display the model name and context percentage:

{
  "statusLine": {
    "type": "command",
    "command": "jq -r '\"[\\(.model.display_name)] \\(.context_window.used_percentage // 0)% context\"'"
  }
}

The optional padding field adds extra horizontal spacing (in characters) to the status line content. Defaults to 0. This padding is in addition to the interface's built-in spacing, so it controls relative indentation rather than absolute distance from the terminal edge.

The optional refreshInterval field re-runs your command every N seconds in addition to the event-driven updates. The minimum is 1. Set this when your status line shows time-based data such as a clock, or when background subagents change git state while the main session is idle. Leave it unset to run only on events.

The optional hideVimModeIndicator field suppresses the built-in -- INSERT -- text below the prompt. Set this to true when your script renders vim.mode itself, so the mode is not shown twice.

Disable the status line

Run /statusline and ask it to remove or clear your status line (e.g., /statusline delete, /statusline clear, /statusline remove it). You can also manually delete the statusLine field from your settings.json.