Recently I stumbled over an article, about how to customize your shell prompt. What really surprised me, is that it lacked one of the most basic tips I learned nearly 20 years back: Always display a timestamp in the prompt, to be able to check how long a process is running or when it ended. (Don’t need it daily, but every so often it saves my butt. ;-)) The other trick is to always have a colorful prompt, to easily discern where output from programs start/stop. In total my PS1 looks like this (with GIT status at the end): [\e[32m]\u[\e[m]@[\e[35m]\h[\e[m] [\e[36m]\A[\e[m] [\e[37m][[\e[m][\e[31m]\w[\e[m][\e[37m]][\e[m]$(__git_ps1 “(%s)”)$

My question is, what customization, tips and tricks do you have for the shell prompt?

  • @[email protected]OPEnglish
    3•1 year ago

    Damn it! That is such an obvious great idea, I feel like an idiot! Thank you very much! :-)

    Any advice/guide how to change the color for ssh sessions?

    • @[email protected]
      4•1 year ago

      Check for the ssh env vars. For example, I use PS1="${SSH_CONNECTION:+\u@\h:}\W\$" to hide the hostname when not on SSH, you could do something similar with the control codes for color.