The status line row

This page lists the forms of the row that smllm statusline prints, then its options, its JSON fields, and its use from harnesses other than Claude Code.

smllm statusline prints where the current session is, as one row for your harness’s status line. The command reads Claude Code’s status JSON on stdin and finds the smllm session bound to its session_id. When there is nothing to show, because there is no smllm config or smllm hasn’t bound a session yet, it prints nothing. The command only reads, takes a few milliseconds, and always exits with 0, so it can’t blank the rest of your status line.

• The default row
• Options
• The JSON fields
• Other harnesses

The default row

The row takes one of two forms:

These rows show each form:

smllm dev › WORK (visit 3) · issue GH-123
smllm dev › REVIEW · issue GH-123 · yielded
smllm idle · 1 interrupted · 2 paused

The parts mean this:

• MACHINE is the state machine, and STATE is its current state.
• (visit N) appears from the second visit to a state, and N is the number of the visit.
• KIND LABEL is the instance, for example issue GH-123. The label is the instance’s ref after the ref is set, and its ID before.
• N interrupted and N paused give the number of interrupted and paused instances.
• yielded means that the agent fired yield, so it can stop until your next prompt.

The row has these colours: smllm dim, the machine cyan, the state bold, the instance magenta, the notes dim, and yielded yellow. Colour is on by default, because a status line command never runs in a terminal that it could check. To turn colour off, set NO_COLOR=1 or pass --color never.

Options

The command takes these options:

smllm statusline [--session KEY] [--json] [--color auto|always|never]

• --session KEY shows the session with the key KEY instead of reading stdin.
• --json prints the fields described in the JSON fields instead of the row.
• --color takes always, never, or auto. auto means always, unless NO_COLOR is set.

The JSON fields

smllm statusline --json prints one object, or {} when there is nothing to show. Every key is always present, and its value is null when it doesn’t apply.

instance and interrupted are each an object {machine, kind, id, ref, label, status}:

• kind is what the machine calls an instance (meta.instance.kind).
• ref is null until it is set.
• label is the ref, or the ID when there is no ref.
• status is active, interrupted, paused, or completed.

A later release can add fields. Before version 1.0, a field is renamed or removed only in a minor release.

The sample in this section comes from a project with this config and this machine:

.smllm/config.toml

[machines]
files = ["dev.smllm.yaml"]

.smllm/dev.smllm.yaml

id: dev
description: Work on an issue, then review the change.
initial: WORK
meta:
  smllm: 1
  instance:
    kind: issue
    ref: { param: issueId, pattern: "^GH-[0-9]+$", description: "The issue's id, such as GH-123." }
  events:
    done:
      description: Fire after the change is made.
    changes:
      description: Fire when the review asks for changes.
    approved:
      description: Fire when the review approves the change.
states:
  WORK:
    meta: { entryPoint: true }
    entry: { type: prompt, params: { text: "Make the change, then fire done." } }
    on:
      done: REVIEW
  REVIEW:
    entry: { type: prompt, params: { text: "Review the change, then fire approved or changes." } }
    on:
      changes: WORK
      approved: DONE
  DONE:
    type: final

The session paused the issues GH-121 and GH-122. Then it entered GH-123, and the review sent the issue back to WORK twice, so the session is at its third visit to WORK, and smllm statusline --json prints this object for it:

{
  "session": "sm-nqvfvw",
  "idle": false,
  "machine": "dev",
  "state": "WORK",
  "visit": 3,
  "yielded": false,
  "instance": { "machine": "dev", "kind": "issue", "id": "i-n7d6tx", "ref": "GH-123", "label": "GH-123", "status": "active" },
  "interrupted": null,
  "paused": 2
}

sm-nqvfvw is the key of the session, and i-n7d6tx is the instance’s ID. Your key and your instance’s ID differ.

Other harnesses

The command needs only a session key. smllm statusline --session KEY works from any status bar, prompt, or tmux line that knows the key. Without --session, the command reads stdin as JSON with a session_id that the Claude Code hooks have bound. A host that uses @six5536/smllm-wasm gets the same fields from engine.status(key).