[BUG] `effort` is not displayable from the CLI status line script

Preflight Checklist

• [x] I have searched existing issues and this hasn't been reported yet
• [x] This is a single bug report (please file separate reports for different bugs)
• [x] I am using the latest version of Claude Code

What's Wrong?

I have a shell script that I use to display the status line. I display the model and the effort. The effort is not reported through the statusline JSON on stdin, so my script (and - I've noticed - others) will look instead on ~/.claude/settings.json to extract the current configured effort.

However, in my isolated environments I use the CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR variable to point my configuration elsewhere. So I have updated the statusline to use CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR if it is set, in favour of the ~/.claude directory. But still I get no effort, displayed, because CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR isn't passed down to the statusline script.

If the effort was passed through the JSON, then this would avoid the need for CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR to be involved. It also would avoid the script having to fall back through to the /etc/claude-code/managed-settings.json (and strictly it should be searching everything listed in https://code.claude.com/docs/en/settings under configuration scopes.

What Should Happen?

There should be a way to retrieve the effort value, either through CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR being available, or the value being passed through to the invoked command.

Error Messages/Logs

Steps to Reproduce

To reproduce the problem.

1. Create a statusline.sh script which simply does jq -r .effortLevel ${CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR:-$HOME/.claude}/settings.json
2. Configure claude CLI in your settings with:

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

1. Open claude and see that the effort is populated.
2. Use /effort to change, and observe that it changes.
3. Exit and use export CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR to select a new configuration directory.
4. mkdir "$CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR"
5. cp ~/.claude/settings.json "$CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR/settings.json"
6. Start claude.
7. Observe that whatever you do with /effort, it's still showing the value from ~/.claude/settings.json (because that's all we know how to read.

Claude Model

Sonnet (default)

Is this a regression?

I don't know

Last Working Version

_No response_

Claude Code Version

2.1.116 (Claude Code)

Platform

Anthropic API

Operating System

macOS

Terminal/Shell

Terminal.app (macOS)

Additional Information

_No response_