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Show smllm in your status line

When you want to see where an agent’s work is without asking it, show smllm in Claude Code’s status line. The row shows the state machine, the state, and the instance of the session, such as smllm dev › WORK (visit 3) · issue GH-123.

To let Claude make the change, ask it to “add smllm to my status line”. The smllm-statusline skill makes the change and shows it to you first. smllm harness install claude installs the skill, and so does smllm harness install all, unless you add --without statusline. The Claude Code plugin also ships the skill. To make the change by hand, follow these steps.

Steps

  1. If you have no status line script yet, create ~/.claude/statusline-command.sh:

    #!/usr/bin/env bash
input=$(cat)
printf '%s' "$input" | smllm statusline

    Then point Claude Code at the script in ~/.claude/settings.json, and skip the next step:

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

  2. If you have a script, add this line at the end of it, after its other output:

    if row=$(printf '%s' "$input" | smllm statusline 2>/dev/null) && [ -n "$row" ]; then printf '\n%s' "$row"; fi

    $input is the status JSON that your script read from stdin (input=$(cat)). Claude Code runs one statusLine command, and each line that the command prints is a row.

  3. Check the setup:

    smllm harness status claude

    The command reminds you when your status line doesn’t call smllm statusline.

Troubleshooting

  • The whole status line goes blank: Claude Code blanks it when the script exits with a non-zero status. Keep the if form of the line in step 2, because a trailing [ -n "$row" ] && printf … exits with a non-zero status whenever smllm has nothing to show.
  • The row doesn’t appear: smllm prints nothing when the project has no smllm config, or before Claude Code’s session start hook has bound a session to smllm. The row appears as soon as Claude Code starts a session in a project with a config.
  • smllm harness install didn’t add the row: it never changes the statusLine setting, because the setting is yours, and a setting at project level would override the status lines of your collaborators.

See also