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 ▓     h a k c e r l i n e   //   animated statusline for Claude Code · v0.4.0 · release: 2026-04-17         ▓
 ▓     47 themed scenes · 13 color palettes · 10 effects · live controls · 0 runtime deps                    ▓
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hakcerline

Two-row animated statusline for Claude Code. Top row shows themed scenes — hexdumps, WarGames, BBS login prompts, nmap sweeps, AOHell, DEFCON levels, Sub7, ICQ, SecKC meetup nights — with smooth color gradients that sweep across static text. Bottom row is your session HUD: model, cost, context window, elapsed time, code delta, rate limits, and live controls.

 nmap ▸ 22/tcp open ssh  80/tcp open http  443/tcp open https ── ◐ scanning
  8% ✳  11m16s ✳ Opus 4.6 ✳ █░░░░░░░ 16% ✳ $0.19 ✳  personal/hakcerline ✳ +0/-0 ✳ [e]Nmap Sweep [t]glow /hakcerline

Pre-rendered. Stateless. Reads stdin, prints two lines, exits.

---

install

npm install -g hakcerline
hakcerline install

This writes the statusLine block to ~/.claude/settings.json. Restart Claude Code and the top of the terminal starts moving.

Remove it:

hakcerline uninstall

---

what you get

Row 1 — themed scene with color gradient animation. Text stays still, colors sweep across it at 1fps. Scenes rotate every 30 seconds by default.

Row 2 — session HUD:

  2% ✳  7m30s ✳ Opus 4.6 ✳ ███░░░░░ 38% ✳ $2.47 ✳  personal/myproj ✳ +186/-42 ✳ [e]Hexdump [t]glow /hakcerline

segment	what	color
rate limit	5h usage %	cyan to amber to red
elapsed	session time	dark cyan
model	model name	bright cyan bold
context	token window bar	blue to amber to red
cost	session cost USD	teal
cwd	working dir	aqua
lines	code added/removed	green / red
scene	current scene [e]	pink
effect	current effect [t]	themed
help	/hakcerline hint	dim

Context bar and rate limit shift from cool to warm as they fill.

---

live controls

Change theme, effect, or pause without leaving Claude Code:

hakcerline theme frost         # or: hakcerline t frost
hakcerline effect glow         # or: hakcerline e glow
hakcerline pause               # or: hakcerline p
hakcerline hide                # or: hakcerline h
hakcerline status              # show current config
hakcerline duration 60         # scene rotation speed

Claude Code slash commands

Type these right in the Claude Code prompt:

/hakcerline t synthwave
/hakcerline e clean
/hakcerline status
/hakcerline-help
/hakcerline-hack metasploit reverse shell   ← generate a new scene from a prompt

Changes take effect on the next tick. Config persists in ~/.config/hakcerline/config.json.

---

themes

13 gradient palettes. 7 vivid, 6 muted:

theme	vibe
random	cycles through all (default)
cyan_blue	cold recon, bright cyan to deep blue
purple_pink	synthwave, purple to hot pink
green_cyan	matrix, forest to cyan
fire	red to orange to yellow to white
ocean	deep navy to bright cyan
synthwave	pink to purple to blue to purple
matrix	green to yellow to green
mono	clean grayscale, white to gray
ember	dark muted reds, burnt orange
frost	pale icy blues and whites
steel	cool grays, barely-there blue tint
amber	warm gold and honey tones
dusk	muted purple-blue twilight

effects

10 per-character color effects:

effect	what it does
glow	bold brightened gradient (default)
clean	static palette gradient, zero animation
solid	single color from palette midpoint
wave	gradient scrolls across the line
rain	random bright flashes over dim base
decrypt	characters reveal progressively from scrambled
sparkle	random highlights shimmer over shifting gradient
beams	light beam sweeps left to right
nfo	ANSI art chars get color, regular text stays gray
hack	ANSI art chars decrypt-scramble, text stays muted
auto	cycles effect per scene

effect tester

Preview all effects side by side:

hakcerline test               # static snapshot, all effects x all palettes
hakcerline test frost          # static, frost palette only
hakcerline test live           # animated with scrolling wave sample
hakcerline test live synthwave # animated, specific palette

The test mode uses tiled oscilloscope waves (▁▂▃▄▅▆▇█▇▆▅▄▃▂▁) that scroll smoothly so you can see exactly how each effect renders in motion.

---

the 47 scenes

pack	count	what's in it
core	7	matrix_rain, wargames, nmap_sweep, bbs_login, packet_race, jp_fence, hacker_typer
infosec	10	traceroute, wardialer, sine_scroller, irc_channel, hexdump, ssh_brute, dns_exfil, enigma, defcon_level, metasploit
oldschool	10	blue_box, warez_nfo, l0phtcrack, morris_worm, cdc_bo, phrack, red_box, sub7, manifesto, mitnick
aol	10	aohell, aol_chatroom, lord, tradewars, mud_session, icq, aim, napster, mirc_xdcc, winnuke
seckc	10	meetup_night, schedule, cyberraid0, badge_pirates, seckcoin, discord, venue_history, talks, rexkc, stitches

---

creating custom scenes

from a prompt (Claude Code)

With the /hakcerline-hack slash command, describe what you want and Claude generates the scene:

/hakcerline-hack wireshark packet capture with DNS queries
/hakcerline-hack kubernetes pod status dashboard
/hakcerline-hack retro BBS door game

The scene gets saved to your custom scenes directory and joins the rotation immediately.

by hand

Drop JSON files in ~/.config/hakcerline/scenes/. They join rotation automatically.

{
  "id": "my_scene",
  "name": "My Scene",
  "pack": "custom",
  "frames": [
    " ACME Corp ▸ Jenkins: 47 passing  Prod: healthy  On-call: nobody ── ◐              ",
    " ACME Corp ▸ Jenkins: 47 passing  Prod: healthy  On-call: nobody ── ◓              ",
    " ACME Corp ▸ Jenkins: 46 passing 1 FAILING  Prod: DEGRADED  On-call: you ── ◑      ",
    " ACME Corp ▸ Jenkins: 46 passing 1 FAILING  Prod: DEGRADED  On-call: you ── ◒      "
  ]
}

scene rules

1. 30-60 frames per scene
2. Small changes between consecutive frames: spinner tick (◐◓◑◒), counter increment, cursor blink, new data point
3. No scrolling/marquee — text stays in place, only color animates
4. No pipes | │ as separators. Use (spaces), · (dot), ▸ (arrow), ── (dash)
5. Pad to 120 chars with trailing spaces
6. Use wave chars ▁▂▃▄▅▆▇█ for visualizer/meter sections — they look great with color effects
7. Frames are pre-rendered strings. Runtime pads/truncates to terminal width.

---

how it works

flowchart LR
  CC[Claude Code] -- session JSON --> STDIN[stdin]
  STDIN --> P[parseInput]
  P --> CFG[loadConfig]
  CFG --> SCENES[loadScenes]
  SCENES --> PICK[getSceneAndFrame\nwall clock]
  PICK --> FIT[fitToWidth]
  FIT --> FX[colorizeScene\neffect + palette]
  FX --> R1[row 1 · scene]
  P --> INFO[buildInfoRowStyled\nrate · elapsed · model\nctx bar · cost · cwd\nlines · scene · effect]
  INFO --> R2[row 2 · HUD]
  R1 --> OUT[stdout 2 lines]
  R2 --> OUT
  OUT --> CC

Loading

The statusline command runs every 1 second (refreshInterval: 1). It reads Claude Code's session JSON from stdin, picks a scene frame based on wall clock time, applies a color effect, builds the HUD row, and prints two lines to stdout. Stateless — no background process, no daemon, no sockets.

animation model

• Text: static. Scenes hold their text still. Small updates (spinners, counters) advance ~1 per 2 seconds.
• Color: the gradient effect sweeps across the static text at 1 step per second, matched to Claude Code's 1-second refresh interval.
• Scene rotation: every duration seconds (default 30), a new scene and palette position kicks in.

This means the animation is smooth and readable — no jarring frame jumps, no seizure-inducing flicker.

---

config

~/.config/hakcerline/config.json:

{
  "packs": ["all"],
  "duration": 30,
  "theme": "random",
  "effect": "glow",
  "paused": false,
  "customScenesDir": "~/.config/hakcerline/scenes",
  "exclude": [],
  "only": null
}

field	default	what it does
packs	["all"]	core, infosec, oldschool, aol, seckc, all
duration	30	seconds per scene before cycling
theme	random	color palette name or random
effect	glow	effect name or null for auto-cycle
paused	false	freeze the scene row
customScenesDir	null	extra directory with your own scene JSONs
exclude	[]	scene IDs to skip
only	null	if set, only run these scene IDs

---

prior art & acks

• ccusage — the Claude Code cost/rate tracker. The info row reads the same stdin JSON shape ccusage exposes. If you want numbers without scenery, use ccusage directly.
• terminaltexteffects — the TTE pip module. The color effects and gradient palettes are ported from TTE to pure TypeScript with zero runtime deps.
• hakcer — the terminal ASCII bling pip module that inspired this one. Different surface area, same spirit.

---

testimonials (totally real)

"Finally a statusline that understands me. I pressed Enter and a blue box played a 2600Hz tone. My phreak ancestors wept." — anon, somewhere with a payphone

"The DEFCON scene cycled to DEFCON 1 during a prod incident. Spooky. Shipped the fix anyway." — SRE, regrets nothing

"My intern thought hakcerline was an exploit kit. I let them think that." — red team lead

"Works on my BBS." — sysop, WWIV user

---

license

MIT. Use it. Fork it. Ship custom scene packs for your company's on-call dashboard. Send them back as a PR if they're good.

---

GREETZ

SecKC · Badge Pirates · 2600Hz crew · every sysop who ever kicked a lamer for asking /who twice · PHRACK · CCC · the ghost of bo2k · everyone still typing at 300 baud in their heart

   ▀▄ GREETZ also go out to /dev/null, which never said a word but listened every time ▄▀