Share your Bash prompts!
I'm looking for inspiration for a custom Bash prompt^[1]^. I'd love to see yours! 😊 If possible, include both the prompt's PS1, and a screenshot/example of what it looks like.
::: spoiler References
- Type: Documentation. Title: "Bash Reference Manual". Publisher: Gnu Project. Edition: 5.2. Published: 2022-09-19. Accessed: 2025-03-21T02:46Z. URI: https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/index.html.
- §6.9 "Controlling the Prompt". URI: https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/Controlling-the-Prompt.html. :::
Crossposts:
C:\>
/s
HA, that's so cursed. I love it.
Do you have anything to check whether the current directory is under
/media/or/mnt/so that you can change the drive letter according to a deterministic assignment?/s
Convert the PWD value to use backslashes, too, for extra cursedness.
c/FoundSatan
I use Starship
Same. I guess, this is the Starship thread now. My config:
I adapted it from the Gruvbox Rainbow theme.
I can post my config, if anyone wants specifically that. (It does kind of assume a light background, though.)
I like the timer and the error icon on a fail. I can't recall how often I think: damn this is taking too long. I should've timed the command
Another starship user. Mostly want it to summarise useful stuff for folders pulled from git or whatever so it's pretty plain rest of the time. I use the same on all my boxes
Starships looks very interesting! I'm going to check it out. Thanks!
Looking in your eyes I see a paradise
This prompt that I found is too good to be true
Standing here beside you
want so much to give you
This love in my heart that I'm feeling for you
Yeah I’m gonna check this out at work next week for sure.
I’m using fish and the default is enough for anybody. 😁
Fish is a really great shell for daily use. There's so much built in, its scripting language is better (not portable though if someone else does not have fish).
By now, enough people have fish that you can basically assume those scripts being “portable”. Far better than nushell or xonsh - which are both pretty advanced shells but other tools lack support for them, e.g. Midnight Commander.
Am I a loser if I stick to POSIX?
I love it! You get git and virtual env integration for free :)
I recently started with fish and dislike that I can't drop bash commands into it because it parses differently. That is enough to annoy me to uninstall.
You shouldn’t just “drop bash commands into it” anyways. And if you really need it, bash is only one
bashaway.$or#, depending on whether I'm root.Prompt is pretty simple, mainly just adjusted coloring and added a timestamp.
PS1='${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\[\033[01;36;01m\]\t \[\033[01;32m\]\u@\[\033[01;37;01m\]\h\[\033[00m\]:\[\033[01;36m\]\w\[\033[00m\]\$ 'That's a warcrime.
How so? What does this do?
Best I can tell is it’s a normal `username@hostname current_directory$ sorta prompt with some coloring: • Red for the square brackets • Orange (color 172) for the username • Light blue (color 153) for the hostname • Amber (color 214) for the current working directory
Other than being hard to read from the embedded coloring I’m not sure why this is a war crime.
I didn't even know I needed to edit my prompt, but now I don't know how I have lived with it for so long.
Mine's pretty simple:
Mine shows the user and host, git commit and branch, docker context and directory, color coded based on status of git:
[root@server001|G:19e526e@(master)|D:myContext|currentDir] $
Are you dowloading and sourcing a file from the internet on your prompt? That sounds a bit scary!
Well, yeah, but it's git: https://raw.github.com/git/git/master/contrib/completion/git-prompt.sh
My thinking is that I trust git on my computer, so I trust downloading from their repo.
But you're right. I should revisit this and see if it's even necessary.
Is this running in your rc (i.e. every single time you open a terminal)? Even if it's safe, I'd be annoyed by any delay.
Yeah, its checking if the file exists first, so it's not doing it all the time.
My worry is more related to repos takeovers or hacks. This is pretty hidden, so it could be easy to even forget it's there, probably not the worst, but still..
It is in my .bashrc, but any delay is not noticeable.
Ah that's fair, I didn't look closely
Maybe you can find some inspiration here.
Mine is simple (inspired by Kali Linux, if that's even correct)
PS1='\[\033[0;32m\]┌──[\t] (\u@\h)-[\w]\n└─$ \[\033[0m\]'I am a simple man.
Mine shows the full path and a new line for commands.
It will also print the exit code of the last command in red above the prompt, if the exit code is not 0.
PS1='$(ec="$?"; if [ $ec -gt 0 ]; then echo -e "\n"[\e[91m]"exit code: $ec"[\e[0m]; fi)\n[\e[92m]\u[\e[38;5;213m]@[\e[38;5;39m]\h[\e[0m]:$PWD\n$ '
I use zsh, but my old Bash prompt looks almost the same as my Zsh prompt. Sorry, no screenshot, but here's the code:
My bash prompt is just me copying the prompt I have set on fish.
I have a small issue with this prompt though. Sometimes the ❯ ends up turning white for some reason.
Mine's really simple; I just make the path bold and yellow:
What I like to do is change the colour depending on the machine I ssh into, e.g. make the path red on my Raspberry Pi.
I'm mainly using zsh but I have a backup bash prompt that closely mirrors it. It shows the return value of the previous command if it's non-zero and gives some information about the current git repository if there is one.
Ok after viewing your prompts I noticed that mine is kinda lame
[username@host ~]$ >
I like Liquid Prompt[1] (A useful adaptive prompt for Bash & Zsh) Examples:
θ70° 2z termight@zone51:~ $ vi .bashrcθ71° 2z termight@zone51:~/docker/invidious master(+34/-17)* ±[1] https://github.com/liquidprompt/liquidprompt
computer /usr/share/ $>PS1='\[\e[1m\][\[\e[92m\]\u\[\e[0m\]@\[\e[96;1;3m\]\h\[\e[0;1m\]]\[\e[0m\] \[\e[1m\][\[\e[38;5;226m\]\w\[\e[39m\]]\[\e[0m\] \[\e[97;1m\]~\[\e[92;5m\]\$\[\e[0m\] 'Note: The "$" prompt flashes like a typical cursor.
Mine is just status(if not zero) and wd
My shit is custom and rather elaborate.
From left-to-right:
/:commitThe code for this is on GitLab.