zjbar

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A Zellij status bar plugin with a Tokyo Night powerline theme and optional AI coding agent activity awareness.

Features

• Powerline tab bar — Tokyo Night themed tab bar with sharp powerline arrows between segments
• Session & mode display — shows session name and input mode (NORMAL, LOCKED, PANE, etc.) with color-coded pills
• Clickable tabs — click any tab to switch
• Optional AI coding agent integration — live activity indicators, permission flash, desktop notifications, and click-to-focus (supports Claude Code, CodeBuddy, Codex, OpenCode, Gemini CLI, and other compatible tools)
• Multi-instance sync — all Zellij tabs show a unified view of all AI sessions

Install

Prerequisites

• Zellij

Option 1: Use release binary

Add the zjbar plugin to your Zellij layout file (e.g. ~/.config/zellij/layouts/zjbar.kdl):

layout {
    default_tab_template {
        children
        pane size=1 borderless=true {
            plugin location="https://github.com/imroc/zjbar/releases/download/v1.1.22/zjbar.wasm"
        }
    }
}

Then start Zellij with this layout:

zellij --layout ~/.config/zellij/layouts/zjbar.kdl

See layout.kdl for a full example with all available color and style options.

Option 2: Build from source

Prerequisites: Rust

git clone https://github.com/imroc/zjbar.git
cd zjbar
make install

This builds the WASM binary, copies it to ~/.config/zellij/plugins/, and installs the layout files. Then start Zellij:

zellij --layout zjbar

AI Tool Integration (optional)

zjbar supports multiple AI coding agents. Each tool uses its own bridge to forward events to the zjbar plugin via zellij pipe.

Claude Code / CodeBuddy

Install the zjbar plugin to automatically register hooks:

/plugin marketplace add imroc/zjbar
/plugin install zjbar@zjbar

Restart Claude Code / CodeBuddy for hooks to take effect.

To update to the latest version:

/plugin update

OpenCode

Add the zjbar plugin to your opencode.json:

{
  "plugin": ["zjbar-opencode@latest"]
}

Then start OpenCode inside a Zellij session with the zjbar layout — activity indicators will appear automatically.

To update, restart OpenCode — it will automatically fetch the latest version since @latest is specified.

Codex CLI

Configure Codex to use the zjbar notify script:

make install-codex-hooks

This copies the notify script and icon to ~/.codex/zjbar/ and adds a notify entry to your Codex config (~/.codex/config.toml). When Codex finishes a turn, zjbar shows the Done indicator and sends a desktop notification with the task summary. The repo can be safely deleted after installation. Override the Codex config directory with CODEX_HOME env var.

To update, re-run make install-codex-hooks from the latest repo.

To uninstall:

make uninstall-codex-hooks

Gemini CLI

gemini extensions install https://github.com/imroc/zjbar

This uses Gemini CLI's native extension system and installs directly from GitHub. Hooks are loaded automatically.

To update to the latest version:

gemini extensions update zjbar

Tip: Add --auto-update during install to enable automatic updates: gemini extensions install https://github.com/imroc/zjbar --auto-update

To uninstall: gemini extensions uninstall zjbar.

zjbar tracks Gemini's full agent lifecycle: Thinking, Tool use, and Done states.

Other tools

zjbar uses a unified JSON event protocol. Any AI coding tool can integrate by sending events via zellij pipe --name zjbar. See the How It Works section for details.

Desktop notifications (optional)

brew install terminal-notifier

When installed, desktop notifications are sent for PermissionRequest, Notification, and Stop events by default. Notifications include context-aware message summaries extracted from the AI tool's transcript:

• Stop — last assistant message + tool usage stats (e.g. 📝2 ✏️3 ▶5)
• PermissionRequest — the specific command or file path being requested
• Notification — the notification message from the AI tool

You can customize which events trigger notifications and the notification mode via ~/.config/zellij/plugins/zjbar.json or the settings menu (click the session name in the status bar):

{
  "flash": "brief",
  "elapsed_time": true,
  "notifications": "always",
  "notify_events": ["PermissionRequest", "Notification", "Stop"]
}

• flash — brief | persist | off (default: brief). Tab background flash on permission request.
• elapsed_time — true | false (default: true). Show elapsed time since last AI tool activity per tab.
• notifications — always | unfocused | off (default: always). When set to unfocused, notifications only fire when the terminal is not the frontmost app.
• notify_events — array of hook events to notify on (default: ["PermissionRequest", "Notification", "Stop"])

Activity Symbols

When integrated with an AI coding agent (Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Gemini CLI, etc.), zjbar shows live activity indicators on each tab:

Symbol	Meaning	Claude Code	CodeBuddy	Gemini CLI	OpenCode	Codex
◆	Session starting	✔	✔	✔	✔
●	Thinking	✔	✔	✔	✔
⚡	Running Bash	✔	✔	✔	✔
◉	Reading / searching files	✔	✔	✔	✔
✎	Editing / writing files	✔	✔	✔	✔
⊜	Spawning subagent	✔	✔	✔	✔
◈	Web search / fetch	✔	✔	✔	✔
⚙	Other tool	✔	✔	✔	✔
▶	Waiting for user prompt	✔	✔
⚠	Waiting for permission	✔	✔		✔
✓	Done	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔

Note: Codex CLI only provides the agent-turn-complete event (mapped to ✓ Done) and does not support other granular states. Gemini CLI lacks hook events for permission requests and user input prompts.

Configuration

All visual settings are configured via the KDL layout file. Every option is optional — defaults use the Tokyo Night theme.

Behavioral settings (flash, elapsed_time, notifications) are stored in ~/.config/zellij/plugins/zjbar.json and can be changed at runtime via the settings menu (click the session name).

plugin location="zjbar.wasm" {
    // Colors: any "#rrggbb" hex value
    bar_bg          "#1a1b26"
    session_bg      "#7aa2f7"
    session_fg      "#16161e"
    tab_active_bg   "#292e42"
    tab_active_fg   "#c0caf5"
    tab_inactive_bg "#16161e"
    tab_inactive_fg "#a9b1d6"

    // Mode colors: mode_<name>_bg / mode_<name>_fg
    // Modes: normal, locked, pane, tab, resize, move, scroll,
    //        search, entersearch, session, prompt, renametab,
    //        renamepane, tmux

    // Activity icon colors
    activity_thinking_color "#bb9af7"
    activity_tool_color     "#ff9e64"

    // Separators (powerline characters)
    separator_left ""     // \ue0b0
    separator_tab  ""     // \ue0b1

    // Tab indicators (shown when pane is fullscreen / floating)
    tab_fullscreen_indicator " 󰊓"
    tab_floating_indicator " 󰹙"
}

See layout.kdl for the full list of available options with defaults.

How It Works

1. WASM plugin — runs inside Zellij, renders the status bar, manages state
2. Hook / plugin bridge (optional) — forwards AI coding agent events via zellij pipe

Claude Code hook → zjbar-hook.sh        → zellij pipe → plugin → render
Codex notify     → zjbar-codex-notify.sh → zellij pipe → plugin → render
OpenCode plugin  → zjbar-opencode-plugin → zellij pipe → plugin → render
Gemini CLI hook  → zjbar-gemini-hook.sh  → zellij pipe → plugin → render

All integrations use a unified JSON payload with a source field to identify the AI tool.

Uninstall

make uninstall

License

MIT