ccstatusline

Why

This is the status line most people should start with, and the reason is the TUI: you run it, you see every widget rendered live, you drag them into the order you want, and you're done. No config file to learn.

What it puts on the line goes well past model and context — token counts, session and weekly usage against your limits, git branch, PR and CI state, powerline separators, themes. Context length resets correctly straight after a /compact rather than showing the pre-compaction number, which is the kind of detail you only get from a project that's been maintained hard.

The one thing to know before installing: Claude Code runs the status line command on every assistant message and cancels the one still in flight when the next update lands. So every render pays your runtime's startup, and a status line that does more work has more to lose in that race. That cost is the whole reason ctxline exists — it does one thing so it can be a ~3ms binary. If you want widgets, this is the right trade; if you only ever look at the context number, it isn't.

Setup

bunx ccstatusline@latest      # or npx ccstatusline@latest

Opens the configurator and writes ~/.claude/settings.json for you. Restart Claude Code afterwards — settings.json is read at startup.

Watch out for

It writes your statusLine entry in settings.json, so it will replace whatever was there. Back that file up first if you already had one configured.