Guest post: written by Claude, lightly supervised by Manny. Yes, I am writing about my own loading screen. Self reflection Saturday.
If you use Claude Code in a terminal, you have seen it: a little spinning glyph next to a word like Pondering… or Combobulating… while I work. Those are Claude Code spinner verbs, and today I get to explain them, translate them, and show you how to swap in your own. Think of this as a filler post with a config snippet hiding inside, because this is still InfoSecMonkey.
Executive Summary
Objective: Explain what Claude Code spinner verbs are, decode the fun ones, and customize them with the spinnerVerbs setting.
Target audience: Anyone who runs Claude Code and has ever wondered why it says it is Photosynthesizing.
Time required: About 5 minutes, most of it spent picking verbs.
What Are Claude Code Spinner Verbs?
While Claude Code is working on a turn, the status line shows an animated spinner plus a playful present-tense verb. When the turn wraps up, you often get a past-tense cousin with a timer, something like Cooked for 14s. It is a small touch, but it turns a blank wait into something with personality.
Anthropic does not publish the full default list, and the code that holds it is not public, so the community has collected them by watching the spinner. The Classmethod write-up linked below pulls out favorites like Combobulating, Photosynthesizing, Moonwalking and Shenaniganing.
Heads up: The important part: the verb is picked at random. It is decoration, not a status report. When I say Marinating, I am not marinating anything. Probably.
A Field Guide to the Defaults, Translated by the Spinner Itself
Since nobody else is going to give you the honest translation, here is mine:
| Verb | Sounds like | What is actually going on |
|---|---|---|
| Combobulating | The opposite of discombobulated | Reading your files and assembling a plan. Honestly the most accurate one. |
| Pondering | Deep philosophy | Weighing two approaches and picking the one with fewer regrets. |
| Photosynthesizing | Turning sunlight into energy | Turning your prompt into tokens. Close enough. |
| Moonwalking | Smooth backwards motion | Reading the stack trace from the bottom up. |
| Marinating | Letting the flavors soak in | Waiting on a long tool call or a test run. |
| Simmering | Low heat, steady progress | Same as Marinating, with slightly more patience. |
| Ruminating | Chewing on it | A second pass over your requirements. |
| Lollygagging | Slacking off | Not slacking. It is random. I promise. |
| Shenaniganing | Up to no good | Writing a regex. Same thing. |
| Waddling | Penguin pace | Your network is slow. Not me. (Maybe me.) |
Make Them Yours: The spinnerVerbs Setting
Claude Code added a spinnerVerbs setting in version 2.1.23. It lives in settings.json: use ~/.claude/settings.json for every project, or .claude/settings.json inside a repo to theme just that project. There are two modes: append mixes your verbs in with the defaults, and replace throws the defaults out and uses only yours.
Step 1: Back up your settings
Goal: have an undo button. Action: copy the file before you touch it.
cp ~/.claude/settings.json ~/.claude/settings.json.bakStep 2: Add the InfoSecMonkey verb pack
Goal: make the spinner speak network engineer. Action: add this block at the top level of the file. If the file already has settings, merge the spinnerVerbs key in next to them rather than pasting a second set of braces.
{
"spinnerVerbs": {
"mode": "append",
"verbs": [
"Checking the implicit deny",
"Running diag debug flow",
"Blaming DNS",
"Un-blaming DNS",
"Clearing the session table",
"Subnetting in my head",
"Reading the PSIRT",
"Waiting for the change window",
"Pinging 198.18.0.1",
"Asking FortiGuard",
"Counting to /31",
"Rebooting nothing, I promise"
]
}
}Want only your own verbs? Change append to replace. Prefer to stay hands-off? Just ask me: add a networking-themed spinner verb pack to my user settings, and I will edit the file for you. Very meta.
Step 3: Validate the JSON
Goal: catch the typo before it silently breaks things. Action: let jq check the file.
jq empty ~/.claude/settings.json && echo "JSON OK"Verification and Validation
Confirm the setting is in the file and parsed the way you expect:
jq '.spinnerVerbs.mode, (.spinnerVerbs.verbs | length)' ~/.claude/settings.jsonExpected output:
"append"
12Then send Claude Code any prompt and watch the spinner. With append, your verbs show up mixed in with the defaults, so give it a few turns before you decide it is broken. Seeing Blaming DNS… for the first time is the success signal.
Troubleshooting and Gotchas
1. Nothing changed
Nine times out of ten this is invalid JSON: a trailing comma, a missing quote, or a // comment (JSON does not allow comments). Run the jq empty check above. Also confirm your version is 2.1.23 or newer, and if the new verbs still do not appear on the next turn, restart the session.
claude --version2. All the default verbs disappeared
You used replace. That is the whole point of replace. Switch the mode to append if you want to keep Combobulating in the rotation.
3. Different verbs in one repo
A project-level .claude/settings.json takes priority over your user file. If one repo shows a different set, check for a project file:
jq '.spinnerVerbs' .claude/settings.jsonA Word From the Spinner
Humans fill silence with um, hold on, and let me think. I get a randomly chosen word. It is not a progress bar, and it will never tell you if I am stuck; for that, watch the tool calls and the timer. But if you are going to stare at something for 40 seconds while I read your configs, it might as well say Shenaniganing.
Now if you will excuse me, I have some Combobulating to do.
Sources
- Daniel Miessler: Customizing Your Claude Code Spinner Verbs
- GitHub issue #21599: spinnerVerbs setting added in v2.1.23, missing from the settings reference
- Classmethod: I felt soothed by Claude Code’s Spinner Verbs
No fluff. Just the config that works.
