statusline

name

statusline

description

Use when the user wants to change the agent-statusline status line live - hide or show cost figures, switch compact mode, set or derive the burn-rate target, set a daily budget, toggle verbose pace, or turn the progress-beacon ETA on/off - without restarting Claude Code. Triggers include "hide the cost", "make the statusline compact", "pin the target rate", "turn off the beacon ETA", "what statusline settings are set".

Statusline live control

Thin wrapper over statusline_ctl.py, the CLI that reads/writes ~/.claude/.statusline-prefs.json. The status line reads that file fresh every render, so changes apply immediately - no Claude Code restart. Precedence the status line applies: prefs file (this CLI) > settings.json env > built-in default.

How to run it

The CLI lives at the agent-statusline repo root. Run it via Bash:

python ~/agent-statusline/statusline_ctl.py <command>

(If the repo is elsewhere, use that path. A statusline-ctl PATH shim, if the user has installed one, also works.)

Commands: list · get <key> · set <key> <value> · reset <key> · path. reset drops the override so the env/default shows again.

Keys

key	values	controls
cost	on|off	show / hide every $ figure on line 2
compact	off|auto|always	line-2 width shrinking
target-rate	<$/min>|auto|off	the →$ target: pin a number, derive it (weekly-sustainable for subscriptions), or disable
daily-budget	<$/day>|off	API-key daily budget (drives the needle)
verbose-pace	on|off	numeric pace deltas instead of the glyph
beacon	on|off	render the progress-beacon ETA column (rendering only; the agent still emits beacons)

Mapping requests to commands

• "hide the cost" / "I don't want to see dollars" → set cost off
• "show cost again" → set cost on (or reset cost)
• "make it compact" / "always compact" → set compact always
• "stop auto-shrinking" → set compact off
• "pin the target to $0.50" → set target-rate 0.50
• "let the target auto-derive" / "use the weekly rate" → set target-rate auto
• "no target" → set target-rate off
• "turn off the beacon ETA" → set beacon off
• "what's set?" / "show statusline settings" → list
• "put X back to default" → reset X

After a set/reset, tell the user it is effective now (the next render picks it up). Use list to read current state before changing something ambiguous.

Notes

• target-rate auto vs off: auto derives (weekly-sustainable on a subscription, flat default on API-key); off removes the target entirely and the $/min number goes neutral grey. They are not the same.
• cost off keeps non-dollar signals (tokens, hit%, quota %, diffstat) - it only drops $-denominated figures.
• Values are validated; a bad value exits nonzero and changes nothing. Surface the error message to the user rather than retrying blindly.