GitHub - marciob/waitwise: Replace Claude Code's spinner with anything useful. Pick a preset, or let your AI write a list for you.

Replace Claude Code's spinner with anything useful.

While Claude Code works, its spinner shows a random word such as "Pondering…". waitwise is a Claude Code plugin that replaces those words with content that you choose.

When you run the setup, your own Claude asks what you want to see. You can give any theme, and Claude writes the list for you. Or you can start from a preset. Some examples:

✻ Owning beats owing…                 (affirmations)
✻ Rain falls. The build waits…        (Zen)
✻ madrugar — to get up early…         (Spanish flashcards)

Requirements

Claude Code
Python 3, available as python3

Install

Run these commands in a Claude Code session:

Add the marketplace from GitHub:

/plugin marketplace add marciob/waitwise

Install the plugin:
```
/plugin install waitwise@waitwise
```
Run the setup:

The new lines show in the spinner of your next message. You do not have to restart Claude Code.

Commands

Command	Result
`/waitwise:setup`	Claude asks which use case you want and installs it.
`/waitwise:setup <preset-id>`	Installs that preset immediately.
`/waitwise:setup status`	Shows what is installed now.
`/waitwise:setup restore`	Puts back the spinner that you had before waitwise.

Presets

Mindset

ID	Content
`positive-affirmations`	2,000 affirmations. Most are about prosperity, money and career.
`stoic-wisdom`	600 short lines of Stoic wisdom. 80 of them are paraphrases of Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, Musonius Rufus and Zeno.
`zen-monk`	500 calm, short lines in the voice of a Zen monk.

Learn a language

Each line shows a word or phrase and its English meaning.

ID	Content
`flashcards-spanish`	500 Spanish words and phrases, A2 to B2
`flashcards-french`	500 French words and phrases, A2 to B2
`flashcards-german`	500 German words and phrases with articles, A2 to B2
`flashcards-japanese`	500 Japanese words with romaji, JLPT N5 to N3

Custom theme

Select "Custom theme" in the setup. Claude asks for a theme, a tone and a language. Then it writes 300 lines and installs them.

How it works

Claude Code reads the spinnerVerbs key in ~/.claude/settings.json. If you set CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR, it reads the file in that folder.
Claude Code selects one random line each time the spinner appears. The line stays until the spinner closes.
If a task list has a step in progress, the spinner shows that step instead of a line from your list.
The script plugins/waitwise/scripts/spinner.py writes only the spinnerVerbs key. It does not change other settings.
The first time you install a list, the script saves your old spinnerVerbs value in waitwise-state.json. The restore command uses this file.
If settings.json is not valid JSON, the script stops and changes nothing.

Uninstall

Run /waitwise:setup restore to put back your old spinner.
Run /plugin uninstall waitwise@waitwise.

If you uninstall the plugin first, your list stays in settings.json. To remove it, delete the spinnerVerbs key from that file.

Add a preset

Make a folder plugins/waitwise/presets/<id>/.
Put one line per verb in lines.txt. Keep each line at 60 characters or fewer. Do not put punctuation at the end, because Claude Code adds "…".

Add preset.json:

{ "name": "Display name", "description": "One sentence.", "language": "en", "group": "Mindset" }

The setup groups the presets by group.

Run claude plugin validate . from the repository root.

License

MIT