powerlevel9k Theme for ZSH

Powerlevel9k is a theme for ZSH which uses Powerline Fonts. It can be used with vanilla ZSH, Oh-My-Zsh, or Prezto, and can also be installed using antigen.

Look like a bad-ass. Impress everyone in 'Screenshot Your Desktop' threads. Use powerlevel9k.

You can check out some other users' configurations in our wiki: Show Off Your Config.

There are a number of Powerline ZSH themes available, now. The developers of this theme focus on four primary goals:

1. Give users a great out-of-the-box configuration with no additional configuration required.
2. Make customization easy for users who do want to tweak their prompt.
3. Provide useful segments that you can enable to make your prompt even more effective and helpful. We have prompt segments for everything from unit test coverage to your AWS instance.
4. Optimize the code for execution speed as much as possible. A snappy terminal is a happy terminal.

Here is powerlevel9k in action, with some simple settings.

Table of Contents

1. Installation
2. Customization
   1. Stylizing Your Prompt
   2. Customizing Prompt Segments
   3. Available Prompt Segments
3. Troubleshooting

Be sure to also check out the Wiki!

Installation

There are two installation steps to go from a lame terminal to a "Power Level 9000" terminal. Once you are done, you can optionally customize your prompt.

Installation Instructions

1. Install the Powerlevel9k Theme
2. Install Powerline-Patched Fonts

No configuration is necessary post-installation if you like the default settings, but there are plenty of segment customization options available if you are interested.

Prompt Customization

Be sure to check out the wiki page on the additional prompt customization options, including color and icon settings: Stylizing Your Prompt

Customizing Prompt Segments

Customizing your prompt is easy! Select the segments you want to have displayed, and then assign them to either the left or right prompt by adding the following variables to your ~/.zshrc. If you don't customize this, the below configuration is the default:

POWERLEVEL9K_LEFT_PROMPT_ELEMENTS=(context dir rbenv vcs)
POWERLEVEL9K_RIGHT_PROMPT_ELEMENTS=(status history time)

Available Prompt Segments

The segments that are currently available are:

• aws - The current AWS profile, if active.
• background_jobs - INdicator for background jobs.
• battery - Current battery status.
• context - Your username and host.
• custom_command - A custom command to display the output of.
• dir - Your current working directory.
• go_version - Show the current GO version.
• history - The command number for the current line.
• ip - Shows the current IP address.
• load - Your machines 5 minute load average.
• node_version - Show the version number of the installed Node.js.
• nvm - Show the version of Node that is currently active, if it differs from the version used by NVM
• os_icon - Display a nice little icon, depending on your operating system.
• php_version - Show the current PHP version.
• ram - Show free RAM and used Swap.
• rbenv - Ruby environment information (if one is active).
• root_indicator - An indicator if the user is root.
• rspec_stats - Show a ratio of test classes vs code classes for RSpec.
• rust_version - Display the current rust version.
• status - The return code of the previous command.
• symphony2_tests - Show a ratio of test classes vs code classes for Symfony2.
• symphony2_version - Show the current Symfony2 version, if you are in a Symfony2-Project dir.
• time - System time.
• todo - Shows the number of tasks in your todo.txt tasks file.
• vi_mode- Vi editing mode (NORMAL|INSERT).
• virtualenv - Your Python VirtualEnv.
• vcs - Information about this git or hg repository (if you are in one).

aws

If you would like to display the current AWS profile, add the aws segment to one of the prompts, and define AWS_DEFAULT_PROFILE in your ~/.zshrc:

export AWS_DEFAULT_PROFILE=<profile_name>

battery

This segment will display your current battery status (fails gracefully on systems without a battery). It can be customized in your .zshrc with the environment variables detailed below with their default values.

POWERLEVEL9K_BATTERY_CHARGING="yellow"
POWERLEVEL9K_BATTERY_CHARGED="green"
POWERLEVEL9K_BATTERY_DISCONNECTED=$DEFAULT_COLOR
POWERLEVEL9K_BATTERY_LOW_THRESHOLD=10
POWERLEVEL9K_BATTERY_LOW_COLOR="red"

In addition to the above it supports standard _FOREGROUND value without affecting the icon color

Supports both OS X and Linux(time remaining requires the acpi program on Linux)

custom_command

The custom_... segment lets you add a custom command to your prompt, to e.g. display the wifi signal. You choose a name for the segment yourself, (here signal), and then set the appropriate variables, as so (based on the name you chose)

POWERLEVEL9K_LEFT_PROMPT_ELEMENTS=(context time battery dir vcs virtualenv custom_signal)
POWERLEVEL9K_CUSTOM_SIGNAL="echo signal: \$(nmcli device wifi | grep yes | awk '{print \$8}')"
POWERLEVEL9K_CUSTOM_SIGNAL_BACKGROUND="blue"
POWERLEVEL9K_CUSTOM_SIGNAL_FOREGROUND="yellow"
POWERLEVEL9K_RIGHT_PROMPT_ELEMENTS=(aws status load ram)

gives

Instead of defining the command inline (if it is kinda long or unreadable), one can also add a function to the .zshrc like:

zsh_signal(){
        local signal=$(nmcli device wifi | grep yes | awk '{print $8}')
        local color='%F{yellow}'
        [[ $signal -gt 75 ]] && color='%F{green}'
        [[ $signal -lt 50 ]] && color='%F{red}'
        echo -n "%{$color%}\uf230  $signal%{%f%}" # \uf230 is 
}

And then by changing the custom commands array (and rearranging a bit the prompt elements) to read:

POWERLEVEL9K_CUSTOM_SIGNAL="zsh_signal"

Then this updated command looks like:

You can also have multiple custom commands. Say you have

POWERLEVEL9K_LEFT_PROMPT_ELEMENTS=(context time battery custom_signal dir vcs virtualenv custom_time )
POWERLEVEL9K_RIGHT_PROMPT_ELEMENTS=(aws status load ram custom_docker)

POWERLEVEL9K_CUSTOM_SIGNAL="zsh_signal"
POWERLEVEL9K_CUSTOM_SIGNAL_FOREGROUND="white"
POWERLEVEL9K_CUSTOM_SIGNAL_BACKGROUND="black"

POWERLEVEL9K_CUSTOM_DOCKER='echo "\uf299 $(docker ps -a | grep Up | wc -l)"' # \uf299 is 
POWERLEVEL9K_CUSTOM_DOCKER_FOREGROUND="white"
POWERLEVEL9K_CUSTOM_DOCKER_BACKGROUND="blue"

POWERLEVEL9K_CUSTOM_TIME='echo "$(date +%s)"'
POWERLEVEL9K_CUSTOM_TIME_FOREGROUND="black"
POWERLEVEL9K_CUSTOM_TIME_BACKGROUND="yellow"

Then you get:

context

The context segment (user@host string) is conditional. This lets you enable it, but only display it if you are not your normal user or on a remote host (basically, only print it when it's likely you need it).

To use this feature, make sure the context segment is enabled in your prompt elements (it is by default), and define a DEFAULT_USER in your ~/.zshrc:

export DEFAULT_USER=<your username>

dir

The dir segment shows the current working directory. You can limit the output to a certain length:

# Limit to the last two folders
POWERLEVEL9K_SHORTEN_DIR_LENGTH=2

To change the way how the current working directory is truncated, just set:

# truncate the middle part
POWERLEVEL9K_SHORTEN_STRATEGY="truncate_middle"
# truncate from right, leaving the first X characters untouched
POWERLEVEL9K_SHORTEN_STRATEGY="truncate_from_right"
# default behaviour is to truncate whole directories

In each case you have to specify the length you want to shorten the directory to. So in some cases POWERLEVEL9K_SHORTEN_DIR_LENGTH means characters, in others whole directories.

ip

This segment shows you your current internal IP address. It tries to examine all currently used network interfaces and prints the first address it finds. In the case that this is not the right IP address you can specify the correct network interface by setting:

POWERLEVEL9K_IP_INTERFACE="eth0"

rspec_stats

See Unit Test Ratios, below.

status

This segment shows the return code of the last command. By default, this segment will always print, but you can customize it to only print if there is an error by setting the following variable in your ~/.zshrc.

POWERLEVEL9K_STATUS_VERBOSE=false

ram

By default this segment shows you free RAM and used Swap. If you want to show only one value, you can specify POWERLEVEL9K_RAM_ELEMENTS and set it to either ram_free or swap_used. Full example:

# Show only used swap:
POWERLEVEL9K_RAM_ELEMENTS=(swap_used)

symphony2_tests

See Unit Test Ratios, below.

time

By default the time is show in 'H:M:S' format. If you want to change it, just set another format in your ~/.zshrc. As an example, this is a reversed time format:

# Reversed time format
POWERLEVEL9K_TIME_FORMAT='%D{%S:%M:%H}'

If you are using an "Awesome Powerline Font", you can add a time symbol to this segment, as well:

# Output time, date, and a symbol from the "Awesome Powerline Font" set
POWERLEVEL9K_TIME_FORMAT="%D{%H:%M:%S \uE868  %d.%m.%y}"

vcs

By default, the vcs segment will provide quite a bit of information. If you would also like for it to display the current hash / changeset, simply define POWERLEVEL9K_SHOW_CHANGESET in your ~/.zshrc. If activated, it will show the first 12 characters of the changeset id. To change the amount of characters, set POWERLEVEL9K_CHANGESET_HASH_LENGTH to any value you want.

# enable the vcs segment in general
POWERLEVEL9K_SHOW_CHANGESET=true
# just show the 6 first characters of changeset
POWERLEVEL9K_CHANGESET_HASH_LENGTH=6

You can also disable the branch icon in your prompt by setting POWERLEVEL9K_HIDE_BRANCH_ICON to true:

# Hide the branch icon
POWERLEVEL9K_HIDE_BRANCH_ICON=true

vcs Symbols

The vcs segment uses various symbols to tell you the state of your repository. These symbols depend on your installed font and selected POWERLEVEL9K_MODE from the Installation section above.

Compatible	Powerline	Awesome Powerline	Explanation
↑4	↑4	4	Number of commits your repository is ahead of your remote branch
↓5	↓5	5	Number of commits your repository is behind of your remote branch
⍟3	⍟3	3	Number of stashes, here 3.
●	●		There are unstaged changes in your working copy
✚	✚		There are staged changes in your working copy
?	?		There are files in your working copy, that are unknown to your repository
→	→		The name of your branch differs from its tracking branch.
☿	☿		A mercurial bookmark is active.
@			Branch Icon
None	None	2c3705	The current commit hash. Here "2c3705"
None	None		Repository is a git repository
None	None		Repository is a Mercurial repository

vi_mode

This segment shows ZSH's current input mode. Note that this is only useful if you are using the ZSH Line Editor (VI mode). You can enable this either by .zshrc configuration or using a plugin, like Oh-My-Zsh's vi-mode plugin.

If you want to display a string other than "NORMAL" or "INSERT" in command and insert-mode, you can do so by setting the following variables in your ~/.zshrc:

POWERLEVEL9K_VI_INSERT_MODE_STRING="INSERT"
POWERLEVEL9K_VI_COMMAND_MODE_STRING="NORMAL"

Unit Test Ratios

The symfony2_tests and rspec_stats segments both show a ratio of "real" classes vs test classes in your source code. This is just a very simple ratio, and does not show your code coverage or any sophisticated stats. All this does is count your source files and test files, and calculate the ratio between them. Just enough to give you a quick overview about the test situation of the project you are dealing with.

Other

Looking for more information? We put a lot of stuff in our Wiki!

Head to the Wiki