[FEATURE] Customize user input text color and cursor style

Preflight Checklist

• [x] I have searched existing requests and this feature hasn't been requested yet
• [x] This is a single feature request (not multiple features)

Problem Statement

Currently, there's no way to visually differentiate user input from Claude's output in the terminal through text color or cursor styling. This makes it harder to quickly scan conversation history and identify what the user typed versus what Claude responded.

Current Behavior

• User input appears in the default terminal text color
• Cursor style cannot be customized
• No built-in way to visually distinguish user messages from Claude's responses beyond the conversation structure

Proposed Solution

Add configuration options to customize user input appearance:

Suggested settings in ~/.claude/settings.json:

{
  "ui": {
    "userInput": {
      "textColor": "yellow",
      "cursorStyle": "block",
      "cursorColor": "yellow",
      "cursorBlink": true
    }
  }
}

Options to support:

• textColor: Color for user-typed text (hex, named colors, or ANSI codes)
• cursorStyle: "block", "underline", "line" (vertical bar)
• cursorColor: Color for the input cursor
• cursorBlink: Boolean for blinking cursor

Use Case

Users who want to:

• Quickly distinguish their input from Claude's output when reviewing conversation history
• Match their terminal's color scheme and aesthetic preferences
• Improve readability based on their visual preferences

Alternative Solutions

Currently no workarounds exist for customizing user input styling in Claude Code.

Related Issues

• #8504 - User input background highlighting customization
• #1302 - Custom terminal themes

This request focuses specifically on text color and cursor styling for user input, which would complement broader theme customization efforts.

Priority

Nice to have - Quality of life improvement

Feature Category

CLI commands and flags

Additional Context

Example use case: Yellow text with a yellow blinking block cursor for user input would provide clear visual differentiation from Claude's output while maintaining good contrast on dark terminal backgrounds.