>_ nix-prompt

A clean, modular Bash prompt with just the right amount of features.

Designed to be readable, hackable, and safe to source in .bashrc.

No framework. No dependencies. No magic.

Note on the name: nix-prompt is not something specific to NixOS. The name comes from my channel, NIX tricks, where "nix" refers to Unix-like systems in general. This is a Bash prompt and works on any Linux or Unix-like system.

Features

🛠️ Modular segments

• Identity (user / host / context)
• Timestamp
• Path
• Git status
• Prompt symbol

🎨 Modern aesthetics

• Truecolor support
• Nerd Font icons

👀 Context-aware

• Root vs user
• SSH sessions
• Last error state
• Git integration

Requirements

• Bash ≥ 4
• Git (optional, for git segment)
• Nerd Font (recommended, for glyphs and rounded badges)

The preview above uses JetBrainsMono Nerd Font.

Check out more NF goodies at nerdfonts.com.

Installation

Before anything else, make sure your terminal uses a Nerd Font instead of a regular (non-patched) font. The glyphs are used to create those rounded corner badges and display most of the icons. Alternatively, the script can be configured to use fallbacks — check the Configuration section a little lower.

Automatic method

Just copy and paste this one-liner:

curl -sS https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nix-tricks/nix-prompt/refs/heads/main/scripts/install.sh | bash

This is what the install script does:

• Downloads the script to your home directory as .nixprompt
• Creates a backup of any existing file with that name
• Sources the script in .bashrc (if not already sourced)

Manual method

1. Download the script scripts/nixprompt.sh to your home directory as a file named .nixprompt
2. Source it in .bashrc by adding something like: [ -f ~/.nixprompt ] && source ~/.nixprompt
3. Restart the terminal session to see the changes
4. Repeat for the root user and other users (local & remote)

Configuration

All configuration is centralized in the config() function.

The first function in the script is config() and it can be modified to add, remove or reorder prompt segments, change the colors, toggle prompt features or configure other options related to git or the shell.

1. Segments

Segments are rendered in order

segments=(identity timestamp path git prompt)

The segments variable defines an array of segments that are to be rendered in the specified order. A render function corresponds to each segment (e.g. render_identity for the identity segment) and each renderer is called by the init() function.

Some segments are evaluated dynamically on each prompt redraw

dynamics=(identity git)

The dynamics variable is for segments with renderers that need to be evaluated every time the prompt is rendered (e.g. the identity and git segments). Dynamic renderers cannot rely on Bash’s backslash-escaped prompt expansions (such as \w or \h), since they are evaluated via command substitution.

2. Colors

There are three color variables that can be customized using hex values:

color_primary="#f5992e"   # accent for regular users (e.g. identity)
color_secondary="#785cea" # is the same as the above but for root
color_neutral="#5f5f87"   # is used as a faded alternative (e.g. git)

The global color is automatically selected depending on whether the shell is running as root.

3. Features

There are three variables that can be used to toggle some of the features:

use_colors=true # can be turned off to use the default foreground color
use_icons=true  # can be turned off to replace NF glyphs with symbols
use_badges=true # can be turned off to remove the segment backgrounds

4. Options

There are three environment variables related to prompt configuration:

PROMPT_DIRTRIM=2 # sets the number of trailing directory components
GIT_PS1_SHOWUNTRACKEDFILES=1 # controls the untracked files indicator
GIT_PS1_SHOWDIRTYSTATE=1 # controls the dirty state indicator display

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Note: This prompt script modifies your PS1, PS2, and PROMPT_COMMAND environment variables. To revert to your original prompt, simply comment out or remove the source line from your .bashrc.