Prompts

A collection of matching shell prompts for zsh, bash, and tcsh with a consistent two-line layout and 256-colour styling.

What they look like

┌─[14:32:05]─[hostname]─[~/path/to/dir]─[ main]
└─ ❯                                          [ 3s]

• Line 1: time, hostname, current directory, git branch (when in a repo)
• Line 2: prompt symbol (❯ for normal users, # for root)
• Right side: command duration (shown only when ≥ 1 second)

Features

Feature	zsh	bash	tcsh
Current time (HH:MM:SS)	✓	✓	✓
Hostname	✓	✓	✓
Current directory	✓	✓	✓
Git branch / commit hash	✓	✓	✓
Command duration	✓	✓	✓
Root indicator (#)	✓	✓	✓
Duration on right side (RPROMPT)	✓	—	—

The zsh version shows duration in RPROMPT (right-aligned). The bash version embeds it inline on the second line. The tcsh version uses the built-in time variable to print duration after commands that take ≥ 1 second.

Files

File	Shell
prompt.zsh	Zsh
prompt.bash	Bash
prompt.tcsh	Tcsh

Prerequisites

A terminal emulator that supports 256-colour ANSI escape codes and UTF-8 (required for the ❯ symbol and box-drawing characters). All modern terminal emulators qualify.

zsh (prompt.zsh)

• zsh 5.0 or later
• git — optional, needed for branch display

bash (prompt.bash)

• bash 4.0 or later
• git — optional, needed for branch display

tcsh (prompt.tcsh)

• tcsh — any recent version
• date — used for HH:MM:SS timestamp (pre-installed on all platforms)
• git — optional, needed for branch display

Installation

Source the appropriate file from your shell's startup file.

zsh

Add to ~/.zshrc:

source /path/to/prompt.zsh

bash

Add to ~/.bashrc (or ~/.bash_profile on macOS):

source /path/to/prompt.bash

tcsh

Add to ~/.tcshrc:

source /path/to/prompt.tcsh

How it works

zsh

Uses add-zsh-hook to attach two hook functions:

• preexec — records $SECONDS when a command starts
• precmd — calculates elapsed time and sets _cmd_duration before each prompt render

The git segment is generated by a function called inline via PROMPT_SUBST. Duration appears in RPROMPT and is only shown when elapsed time is ≥ 1 second.

bash

Uses PROMPT_COMMAND to rebuild PS1 before each prompt. Command timing is tracked via a trap ... DEBUG that fires before each command. The git branch is resolved with git symbolic-ref (branches) falling back to git rev-parse (detached HEAD). Duration is embedded inline on the second line since bash has no RPROMPT.

tcsh

Uses the built-in time variable to automatically print duration for commands that take ≥ 1 second — no manual timing needed. The prompt is rebuilt in a precmd alias that calls date for the timestamp and git symbolic-ref/git rev-parse for the branch. Tcsh has no preexec, so per-command timing relies entirely on the built-in mechanism.