Subtext

A status line for Claude Code. It shows you what's actually happening in your session at a glance — how loaded your context is, whether you're on pace with your rate limits, and where you are in your current work.

<𝕊> | Tokens:87k | 5h:24% | 7d:55% | Opus 4.7 (1M) | E:xhigh
    | feat/initial-release* | 42m | $0.12 | Task:3/8

Built for Substrate — a Claude Code operating environment by Subsequence.ai. Substrate is in beta, and Subtext is its first public component. It works standalone with any Claude Code setup.

What you see

Line 1 — session health

• Tokens:87k — how many tokens are in your context right now, color-coded. Green under 90k, yellow up to 130k, orange up to 160k, red above. Claude's accuracy starts degrading past ~200k regardless of the model's window size, so the thresholds are absolute tokens — not a percentage of the window.
• 5h:24% / 7d:55% — rate limit usage, colored by pace. Green means you're on track. If you're burning faster than the window is elapsing, the color warms and the hours-until-reset appears (5h:60% -2h).
• Opus 4.7 (1M) — your active model.
• E:xhigh — current effort level. Hidden when unset.
• agents(2): alpha, beta — active agents in the session (subagents, named agents, etc.). Hidden when none are running.

Line 2 — working context

• feat/initial-release* — git branch. * means there are uncommitted changes.
• 42m — time since the session started.
• $0.12 — what this session would cost at API pricing. Your Pro/Max plan covers it, but it's worth watching.
• Task:3/8 — completed vs total checkboxes in tasks.md at the project root. Hidden when there's no task file.

Any segment without data gets dropped rather than shown empty.

Install

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/subsequence-ai/subtext/main/install.sh | bash

Downloads the script, configures Claude Code to use it, and backs up your existing status line. Requires jq (brew install jq on macOS, apt install jq on Linux).

Manual

1. Copy statusline.sh to ~/.claude/statusline.sh and chmod +x it.
2. Add this to ~/.claude/settings.json:

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

Changes take effect on your next interaction with Claude Code.

Customize

statusline.sh is about 200 lines of bash with no dependencies beyond jq. Adjust color thresholds, reorder segments, rename labels — just read the script and edit.

Requirements

• Claude Code (Pro or Max subscription for rate limit data)
• jq
• Bash
• macOS or Linux

License

MIT