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.
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! 
- 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\[\033[00m\]\$ ' 
- 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\[\e[m\]\[\e[31m\]]\[\e[m\]\\$ "- 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. 
 
 
 
- 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- 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 
 
 
 
 
 
- 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. 
- Maybe you can find some inspiration here. 
- 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
- export PS1="\[\e]0;\u@\h:\w\a\]\[\e[1;34m\]\u@\h:\w\[\e[0m\]\$ "- I am a simple man. 
- Mine is simple (inspired by Kali Linux, if that’s even correct) 
 - PS1='\[\033[0;32m\]┌──[\t] (\u@\h)-[\w]\n└─$ \[\033[0m\]'
- 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.  
- 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\] $(git branch 2>/dev/null | grep '^*' | colrm 1 2)\n\033[01;34m└─>\033[37m '
- Mine shows the full path and a new line for commands. - It will also print the exit code of the last command in red above the prompt, if the exit code is not 0. - PS1='$(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$ ’  













