Allow customizing the "working" spinner verbs (and ideally sync across surfaces)

Open 💬 0 comments Opened Jul 11, 2026 by SkyGlass-Actual

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
While a tool call is running, Claude Code shows a randomly-picked verb (e.g. "kanookling…", "slithering…") as a status indicator. These are currently a hardcoded list baked into the CLI, with no way to customize them. Some of the default words don't fit my taste/workflow, and I'd like to personalize this.

Describe the solution you'd like

  • A settings.json key (e.g. statusIndicator.words or similar) that accepts a custom array of strings to use instead of (or in addition to) the built-in list.
  • Optionally, a lightweight "theme" concept — a named preset of words/style (e.g. nautical, technical, playful) selectable via a single setting.
  • If feasible, this preference could live in a user-level config so it applies consistently across all projects for that user, not just per-repo.

Describe alternatives you've considered
Currently the only workaround is asking Claude to narrate progress in its own text output, which doesn't touch the actual spinner/status UI.

Additional context
Ideally this preference would be shared across Claude Code, the desktop app, and claude.ai, but I understand those are likely separate codebases/config stores, so CLI-level support alone would still be valuable.

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