Claude Code Colorizer

Developer cjodo released claude-colorizer, a dependency-free Go tool that renders color literals from Claude Code conversations as live statusline swatches and changes terminal tab and background colors across working, needs-you, and done/error states. The tool parses #rgb, #rrggbb(aa), rgb()/rgba(), hsl()/hsla(), and oklch() values, requires Go 1.22+ and Claude Code, and installs via `make install`, which runs `go install` and adds the statusline and hooks to ~/.claude/settings.json. Ghostty is the most tested terminal; Kitty and WezTerm tab colors require extra terminal configuration, and tmux tab colors need `set -g allow-passthrough on`.

Color visualization for Claude Code, in the spirit of nvim-colorizer https://github.com/NvChad/nvim-colorizer.lua . Written in Go with no dependencies. - Statusline swatches. Colors mentioned in the conversation Claude's replies, code it writes, your prompts appear as live swatches under the prompt. It reads rgb , rrggbb aa , rgb /rgba , hsl /hsla and oklch . - State colors. The terminal tab and background tint change as the session moves through working → needs you → done / error . - show / try . Highlight color literals in any file claude-colorizer show styles.css , or preview a color as your terminal background claude-colorizer try ' 1e1e2e' . Ghostty is the most tested terminal: it's the one claude-colorizer is developed in. The other drivers follow each terminal's documented escape sequences and have unit tests, but see less real use. If you use one of them, see CONTRIBUTING.md https://github.com/cjodo/claude-colorizer/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md for a short test checklist and how to report results or add a terminal. | Terminal | Tab color | Background tint | Title fallback | |---|---|---|---| | Kitty | ✅ remote control¹ | ✅ OSC 11 | — | | Ghostty | — no escape exists | ✅ OSC 11 | ✅ glyph | | WezTerm | ✅ user var + Lua² | ✅ OSC 11 | — | | iTerm2 | ✅ OSC 6 | ✅ OSC 1337 | — | | Warp | — | — | ✅ glyph | | Alacritty | — no tabs | ✅ OSC 11 | ✅ glyph | | Windows Terminal | — | ✅ OSC 11 | ✅ glyph | | other xterm-like | — | ✅ OSC 11 | ✅ glyph | Statusline swatches use 24-bit SGR colors, which work in all of them. Each terminal is a driver implementing terminal.Terminal internal/terminal/drivers.go . Detection reads environment variables internal/terminal/detect.go . Inside tmux it asks tmux which terminal each client tty attached to the session is running instead, because the environment describes the terminal that started the tmux server. If different terminals are attached, tab colors are sent to all of them. To override detection, set CLAUDE COLORIZER TERMINAL=kitty|ghostty|wezterm|iterm2|warp|alacritty|windows-terminal|generic . Run claude-colorizer detect to see what was picked. ¹ Kitty : add allow remote control yes to kitty.conf or socket-only plus listen on . Without it, kitty ignores the tab color and only the background changes. ² WezTerm : the color is published as the user var claude colorizer tab . To paint the tab, add this to wezterm.lua : wezterm.on 'format-tab-title', function tab local c = tab.active pane.user vars.claude colorizer tab if c and c ~= '' then return { { Background = { Color = c } }, { Foreground = { Color = ' 000000' } }, { Text = ' ' .. tab.active pane.title .. ' ' } } end end tmux : background tint and title work without any setup; tmux applies them to the pane. Tab colors kitty, iTerm2, WezTerm have to reach the outer terminal, so they need set -g allow-passthrough on . They are wrapped automatically when $TMUX is set. Title fallback : Claude Code sets the terminal title itself and may overwrite the glyph. If your version supports CLAUDE CODE DISABLE TERMINAL TITLE=1 , set it. If you don't want the glyph, set "title": false . You need Go 1.22+ and Claude Code. git clone <this repo && cd claude-colorizer make install That's the whole setup. make install does two things: 1. Runs go install , which builds the binary into $ go env GOPATH /bin . 2. Runs claude-colorizer install , which adds the statusline and all hooks to ~/.claude/settings.json using the binary's absolute path , so it doesn't matter whether that directory is on your $PATH . Restart Claude Code, then try it: ask Claude for a palette and the swatches appear under the prompt. The tab or background changes while it works. Tab colors in Kitty and WezTerm need one extra piece of terminal config. See Terminal support terminal-support . - Backup: the previous file is saved as settings.json.bak . If settings.json isn't valid JSON for example, it has comments , install refuses to touch it. - Your existing statusline is kept: it's chained, so its output renders on the line above the swatches. uninstall puts it back exactly. - Hooks: they are appended next to any hooks you already have, never replacing them. Running install again doesn't add duplicates. - Key order: keys in settings.json are rewritten in alphabetical order. Preview the changes first with claude-colorizer install --dry-run . | Flag | Effect | |---|---| | --dry-run | Print the changes without writing | | --no-hooks | Statusline only or use this if you installed the plugin | | --no-statusline | State colors only | | --settings PATH | Edit another file, e.g. .claude/settings.json in a project | Pass flags through make with make install ARGS="--no-statusline" . make uninstall or: claude-colorizer uninstall This removes only the entries it added, restores a chained statusline, and deletes the binary. The repo is also a plugin marketplace. The plugin only provides the hooks, because plugins can't set a statusline: /plugin marketplace add /path/to/claude-colorizer /plugin install claude-colorizer@claude-colorizer Then run claude-colorizer install --no-hooks to add the statusline without registering the hooks twice. To try it for a single session without installing, run claude --plugin-dir /path/to/claude-colorizer . The tab, background tint and title glyph show what the session is doing, so you can tell from another tab or window whether Claude needs you. | Color | Glyph | State | Meaning | |---|---|---|---| | Blue | 🔵 | working | Claude is working: thinking, writing, running tools. Nothing for you to do yet. | | Amber | 🟡 | attention | Claude is waiting on you: a permission prompt, or it has sat idle waiting for input. | | Green | 🟢 | done | Claude finished its turn. Read the reply and send the next prompt. | | Red | 🔴 | error | Something failed: the API request errored, or a tool call failed. | | Your defaults | none | reset | The session just started or ended. | Red after a failed tool call doesn't always mean the turn is over. Claude often recovers, and the color goes back to blue on its next successful tool call. Red after an API error stays until you send another prompt. The glyph is a fallback for terminals that can't color their tabs. It appears at the start of the window title. See the Title fallback column in Terminal support terminal-support . | Hook event | State | Default tab / tint | |---|---|---| | UserPromptSubmit , PostToolUse | working | 3b82f6 / 151b2b | | Notification permission, idle | attention | f59e0b / 2a2112 | | Stop | done | 22c55e / 13231a | | StopFailure , PostToolUseFailure | error | ef4444 / 2b1515 | | SessionStart , SessionEnd | reset | terminal defaults | To change any color or glyph, see Configuration configuration . ~/.config/claude-colorizer/config.json or $CLAUDE COLORIZER CONFIG . Every key is optional and is layered over the defaults. Run claude-colorizer config to print the effective config. { "tab": true, "background": true, "title": true, "states": { "working": { "tab": " 7c3aed", "background": " 1a1426" }, "done": { "background": " eef9f0" } }, "statusline": { "max": 12, "sources": "assistant", "tools", "user" , "label": "hex", "prefix": "🎨 ", "empty": "" } } The default background tints assume a dark theme. On a light theme, set light background values, or set "background": false . make test go vet + unit tests parser, drivers, detection, transcript make cross linux/darwin/windows binaries in dist/ See CONTRIBUTING.md https://github.com/cjodo/claude-colorizer/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md for testing on a terminal and adding a new one.