Spyke
linux·LinuxbyKalcifer

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

  1. 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.

Crossposts:

View original on sh.itjust.works

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

8
jcgreply
halubilo.social

Convert the PWD value to use backslashes, too, for extra cursedness.

3
Epherareply
lemmy.ml

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.)

17

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

3

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

2

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

1
Azzk1krreply
feddit.nl

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).

4
lemmy.ml

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.

2

I love it! You get git and virtual env integration for free :)

3
lemmy.world

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.

0

You shouldn’t just “drop bash commands into it” anyways. And if you really need it, bash is only one bash away.

9

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\[\033[00m\]\$ '

10
lemm.ee
export PS1="\[\e[31m\][\[\e[m\]\[\e[38;5;172m\]\u\[\e[m\]@\[\e[38;5;153m\]\h\[\e[m\] \[\e[38;5;214m\]\W\[\e[m\]\[\e[31m\]]\[\e[m\]\\$ "
10

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.

3

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.

7

Mine's pretty simple:

## .bashrc
export BLA=$(tput setaf 0) # Black
export RED=$(tput setaf 1) # Red
export GRE=$(tput setaf 2) # Green
export YEL=$(tput setaf 3) # Yellow
export BLU=$(tput setaf 4) # Blue
export MAG=$(tput setaf 5) # Magenta
export CYA=$(tput setaf 6) # Cyan
export WHI=$(tput setaf 7) # White

export BOL=$(tput bold)    # Bold
export ITA=$(tput sitm)    # Italic
export UL=$(tput smul)     # Underline
export NC=$(tput sgr0)     # No color & format

_branch() {
    local branch=$(__git_ps1 "%s")
    if [[ -z $branch ]]; then
        printf "${BLA}null${NC}"
    else 
        printf "${CYA}$branch"
    fi
}

PS1='.\[$(_pwd)\] \[$BLA\]〜 \[$MAG\]git\[$BLA\]:\[$(_branch)\] \n \[$NC$CYA\]\! \[$MAG\]\$ \[$NC\]'

## .inputrc

set vi-ins-mode-string \1\e[34m\2.INS
set vi-cmd-mode-string \1\e[33m\2.CMD
6

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] $

## PS1 adapted from https://gist.github.com/xenji/2292341
ps1_generator() {
    # docker context inspect --format '{{ .Name }}'
    Time12h="\T"; Time12a="\@"; ShortHost="\h"; Username="\u";
    PathShort="\W"; PathFull="\w"; NewLine="\n"; Jobs="\j";
    test -f ~/.config/git-prompt.sh || \
        curl -L https://raw.github.com/git/git/master/contrib/compl
etion/git-prompt.sh \
             > ~/.config/git-prompt.sh
    source ~/.config/git-prompt.sh
    Color_Off="\[\033[0m\]"; IBlack="\[\033[0;90m\]"; BWhite="\[\03
3[1;37m\]"; BGreen="\[\033[1;32m\]";
    BIRed="\[\033[1;91m\]"; BIWhite="\[\033[1;97m\]"; BIPurple="\[\
033[1;95m\]"; BIBlue="\[\033[1;94m\]";
    GIT_PS1='$(git branch &>/dev/null;\
if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then \
  echo "$(echo `git status` | \grep "nothing to commit" > /dev/null
 2>&1; \
  DIRTY="$?"; \
  HEADREV=`git log --pretty=%h -n 1`; \
  echo -n "|G:'${BWhite}'$HEADREV"; \
  if [ "$DIRTY" -eq "0" ]; then \
    # @4 - Clean repository - nothing to commit
    echo "@'${BGreen}'"$(__git_ps1 "(%s)"); \
  else \
    # @5 - Changes to working tree
    echo "'${BIBlue}'@'${BIRed}'"$(__git_ps1 "{%s}"); \
  fi)'${Color_Off}'"; \
else \
  # @2 - Prompt when not in GIT repo
  echo ""; \
fi)'
    if docker context inspect >/dev/null 2>&1; then
        DOCKER_PS1='|D:'${BIBlue}'$(docker context inspect --format
 "{{ .Name }}")'${Color_Off}
    fi
    USER_PS1=${BIPurple}${Username}'@'${ShortHost}${Color_Off}
    PATH_PS1='|'${BWhite}${PathShort}${Color_Off}
    export PS1='['${USER_PS1}${GIT_PS1}${DOCKER_PS1}${PATH_PS1}'] $
 '
}
ps1_generator && unset -f ps1_generator
6
Gounreply
lemmy.ml

Are you dowloading and sourcing a file from the internet on your prompt? That sounds a bit scary!

8
teawrecksreply
sopuli.xyz

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.

2
Gounreply

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..

3

Mine is simple (inspired by Kali Linux, if that's even correct)
PS1='\[\033[0;32m\]┌──[\t] (\u@\h)-[\w]\n└─$ \[\033[0m\]'

5
export PS1="\[\e]0;\u@\h:\w\a\]\[\e[1;34m\]\u@\h:\w\[\e[0m\]\$ "

I am a simple man.

5

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$ '

4

I use zsh, but my old Bash prompt looks almost the same as my Zsh prompt. Sorry, no screenshot, but here's the code:

export PS1='\[\033[01;34m\][\[\033[01;37m\] \W\[\033[01;34m\]]\$\033[01;34m\] $(git branch 2>/dev/null | grep '^*' | colrm 1 2)\n\033[01;34m└─>\033[37m '
4

My bash prompt is just me copying the prompt I have set on fish.

# Prompt
green=$'\e[38;5;2m'
bright_red=$'\e[38;5;9m'
bright_green=$'\e[38;5;10m'
reset=$'\e[0m'

prompt_command()
{
    local exit_status=$?

    if [[ $exit_status != 0 ]]; then
        exit_color=$bright_red
        exit_prompt=" [$exit_status]"
    else
        exit_color=$bright_green
        exit_prompt=""
    fi
}

PROMPT_COMMAND=prompt_command
PS1='\[$green\]\w\[$exit_color\]$exit_prompt\n❯ \[$reset\]'

I have a small issue with this prompt though. Sometimes the ❯ ends up turning white for some reason.

4

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.

3

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.

retval() {
        if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
                printf ""
        else
                printf "\001\e[31m\002($?)\001\e[0m\002"
        fi
}

gitbranch() {
        if type git 2> /dev/null 1> /dev/null && git rev-parse 2> /dev/null 1> /dev/null ; then
                MODIFIED=""
                if [[ -n $(git status --short) ]]; then
                        MODIFIED=" M"
                fi
                BRANCH=$(git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD)
                SHORTREF=$(git rev-parse --short HEAD)
                printf "\001\e[31m\002%s\001\e[0m\002(%s)\001\e[31m\002%s\001\e[0m\002" $BRANCH $SHORTREF $MODIFIED
        else
                echo -n ""
        fi
}

export PROMPT_DIRTRIM=3

PS1='$(retval)[\001\e[1;95m\002\u\001\e[0m\002@\h : \w $(gitbranch)] \$ '
PS2='> '

3

Ok after viewing your prompts I noticed that mine is kinda lame

2

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.

2

My shit is custom and rather elaborate.

From left-to-right:

  • name@server-name
  • Uptime (multiplied by 10 and rounded to the nearest integer to save space)
  • Percentage disk space available on /
  • Number on established network connections
  • Git branch : commit
  • Python virtualenv
  • [new line]
  • date and time

The code for this is on GitLab.

2

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