[FEATURE] Show the current project/codebase identity in the CLI UI by default (hard to tell sessions apart when working on multiple projects)
Open 💬 0 comments Opened Jul 2, 2026 by lisa3907
Problem
When running several Claude Code CLI sessions on the same PC — one terminal window (or tab/split) per project — it is hard to tell which project a session belongs to after switching windows. The prompt area itself carries no project identity by default, so you have to scroll back or run a command like pwd to be sure which codebase you are about to give instructions to.
This is risky as well as inconvenient: it is easy to type an instruction intended for project A into the session running on project B.
Use case
- Same PC, multiple projects in parallel (e.g. 3–4 terminal windows, each with its own Claude Code session)
- Frequent Alt-Tab / tab switching between them
- Each window looks identical: same header, same prompt — nothing on screen says which repo/cwd the session is bound to
Current workarounds (and why they are not enough)
statusLinesetting: works (I currently use a custom script that prepends the cwd basename + git branch), but it requires every user to discover the feature, write a script, and configure it per machine. Project identity feels like something that should be visible out of the box.- Terminal window/tab title: related requests exist (#17951, #7229), but the title bar is easy to miss, is controlled by the terminal (not always visible in splits/multiplexers), and some environments override it.
Proposed solution
Show the project identity by default in the CLI UI, for example:
- Display the workspace directory name (and ideally the git branch) near the prompt input — e.g. as a default status line shown when no custom
statusLineis configured, or - Include the project name in the existing header/footer chrome persistently.
Any of these would make it immediately obvious which codebase a session is operating on when switching between windows.
Environment
- Claude Code CLI on Windows 11 (Windows Terminal / PowerShell)
- Also applies to macOS/Linux terminals — the problem is platform-independent