Claude Code Spinner Verbs: The Complete List of 185 Status Verbs Extracted from Source Code

🌏 中文版

When you type a command in Claude Code, a spinning ✻ appears in the terminal next to a verb — sometimes the sensible Thinking..., sometimes the baffling Flibbertigibbeting.... How many of these verbs are there? How are they chosen? Can you change them? The fastest way to find out is to read the source code directly.

Data Sources

All verb lists and configuration formats in this post come from first-hand sources only — no unverified secondary information:

The categorization section later in this post is my own semantic grouping — there is no classification mechanism in the source code.

What Are Spinner Verbs?

While Claude Code processes a request, these verbs cycle through in the terminal:

✻ Pondering...
✻ Brewing...
✻ Clauding...

Once done, it switches to the past tense with elapsed time:

✻ Cooked for 1m 23s
✻ Sautéed for 45s

The mechanism is simple: a verb is picked randomly from an array. There is no mapping of different verbs to task types or processing stages.

The Complete 185 Default Verbs

Extracted from the Q51 array in cli.js, sorted alphabetically:

Accomplishing    Actioning        Actualizing      Architecting
Baking           Beaming          Beboppin'        Befuddling
Billowing        Blanching        Bloviating       Boogieing
Boondoggling     Booping          Bootstrapping    Brewing
Burrowing        Calculating      Canoodling       Caramelizing
Cascading        Catapulting      Cerebrating      Channeling
Channelling      Choreographing   Churning         Clauding
Coalescing       Cogitating       Combobulating    Composing
Computing        Concocting       Considering      Contemplating
Cooking          Crafting         Creating         Crunching
Crystallizing    Cultivating      Deciphering      Deliberating
Determining      Dilly-dallying   Discombobulating Doing
Doodling         Drizzling        Ebbing           Effecting
Elucidating      Embellishing     Enchanting       Envisioning
Evaporating      Fermenting       Fiddle-faddling  Finagling
Flambéing        Flibbertigibbeting Flowing        Flummoxing
Fluttering       Forging          Forming          Frolicking
Frosting         Gallivanting     Galloping        Garnishing
Generating       Germinating      Gitifying        Grooving
Gusting          Harmonizing      Hashing          Hatching
Herding          Honking          Hullaballooing   Hyperspacing
Ideating         Imagining        Improvising      Incubating
Inferring        Infusing         Ionizing         Jitterbugging
Julienning       Kneading         Leavening        Levitating
Lollygagging     Manifesting      Marinating       Meandering
Metamorphosing   Misting          Moonwalking      Moseying
Mulling          Musing           Mustering        Nebulizing
Nesting          Newspapering     Noodling         Nucleating
Orbiting         Orchestrating    Osmosing         Perambulating
Percolating      Perusing         Philosophising   Photosynthesizing
Pollinating      Pondering        Pontificating    Pouncing
Precipitating    Prestidigitating Processing       Proofing
Propagating      Puttering        Puzzling         Quantumizing
Razzle-dazzling  Razzmatazzing    Recombobulating  Reticulating
Roosting         Ruminating       Sautéing         Scampering
Schlepping       Scurrying        Seasoning        Shenaniganing
Shimmying        Simmering        Skedaddling      Sketching
Slithering       Smooshing        Sock-hopping     Spelunking
Spinning         Sprouting        Stewing          Sublimating
Swirling         Swooping         Symbioting       Synthesizing
Tempering        Thinking         Thundering       Tinkering
Tomfoolering     Topsy-turvying   Transfiguring    Transmuting
Twisting         Undulating       Unfurling        Unravelling
Vibing           Waddling         Wandering        Warping
Whatchamacalliting Whirlpooling   Whirring         Whisking
Wibbling         Working          Wrangling        Zesting
Zigzagging

The 8 Completion Verbs

When processing finishes, one verb is randomly selected from the cW1 array and displayed with elapsed time:

cW1 = ["Baked","Brewed","Churned","Cogitated","Cooked","Crunched","Sautéed","Worked"]

Five of the eight completion verbs have a culinary theme (Baked, Brewed, Churned, Cooked, Sautéed). This is not speculation — it’s exactly what the code says.

Unofficial Categorization (Author’s Own)

The 185 verbs in the source code sit in a single flat array and are picked randomly — there are no category labels. The following groupings are my own semantic classification, provided purely for readability.

Culinary (~20 verbs)

Baking, Blanching, Brewing, Caramelizing, Cooking, Drizzling, Fermenting, Flambéing, Frosting, Garnishing, Infusing, Julienning, Kneading, Leavening, Marinating, Proofing, Sautéing, Seasoning, Simmering, Stewing, Tempering, Whisking, Zesting

This mirrors the culinary theme of the completion verbs — the whole spinner can be read as “the AI is cooking your request and will serve it when done.”

Cognitive Thinking (~10 verbs)

Cerebrating, Cogitating, Considering, Contemplating, Deciphering, Deliberating, Elucidating, Musing, Philosophising, Pondering, Ruminating

The most “serious” category — these verbs directly describe the AI thinking through a problem.

Natural Phenomena (~15 verbs)

Billowing, Cascading, Ebbing, Evaporating, Flowing, Fluttering, Gusting, Misting, Precipitating, Sprouting, Swirling, Thundering, Undulating, Whirlpooling

Physical processes from the natural world used as metaphors for computation.

Animal Behavior (~10 verbs)

Burrowing, Frolicking, Galloping, Hatching, Herding, Pollinating, Pouncing, Roosting, Scampering, Slithering, Swooping, Waddling

Science (~8 verbs)

Crystallizing, Ionizing, Nebulizing, Nucleating, Osmosing, Photosynthesizing, Sublimating, Symbioting

Music / Dance (~7 verbs)

Beboppin’, Boogieing, Grooving, Harmonizing, Improvising, Jitterbugging, Sock-hopping

Whimsical Coinages and Humor (~15 verbs)

Booping, Canoodling, Combobulating, Dilly-dallying, Discombobulating, Fiddle-faddling, Flibbertigibbeting, Flummoxing, Hullaballooing, Lollygagging, Razzle-dazzling, Razzmatazzing, Recombobulating, Shenaniganing, Tomfoolering, Topsy-turvying, Whatchamacalliting

Among these, Combobulating and Recombobulating are back-formed words derived from Discombobulate — they don’t exist in standard dictionaries. Recombobulating has a fun origin: Milwaukee’s airport installed a sign reading “Recombobulation Area” after the security checkpoint, inviting travelers to “reassemble themselves.”

Easter Eggs

• Clauding — the only verb coined from the product’s own name
• Gitifying — a nod to every developer’s daily workflow
• Reticulating — a reference to the classic The Sims loading screen easter egg “Reticulating Splines”
• Prestidigitating — a conjurer’s sleight of hand
• Newspapering — humorously turning a noun into a verb

Customizing Spinner Verbs

Set spinnerVerbs in settings.json. The following is the actual logic from the source code (ZI4 function, simplified):

function getSpinnerVerbs() {
  const config = getSettings().spinnerVerbs;
  if (!config) return DEFAULT_VERBS;              // not configured → use default 185
  if (config.mode === "replace")
    return config.verbs.length > 0
      ? config.verbs                               // replace → full replacement
      : DEFAULT_VERBS;                             // empty array → fall back to default
  return [...DEFAULT_VERBS, ...config.verbs];      // append → merge
}

Full Replacement

Only display the verbs you specify:

{
  "spinnerVerbs": {
    "mode": "replace",
    "verbs": ["Hacking", "Shipping", "Deploying", "Scaling"]
  }
}

Append to Defaults

Your verbs are added to the 185 and picked randomly together:

{
  "spinnerVerbs": {
    "mode": "append",
    "verbs": ["Bubble-tea-ing", "Boba-sipping"]
  }
}

Schema Definition

Confirmed from the official JSON Schema (schemastore.org):

{
  "spinnerVerbs": {
    "type": "object",
    "properties": {
      "mode": {
        "type": "string",
        "enum": ["append", "replace"]
      },
      "verbs": {
        "type": "array",
        "items": { "type": "string", "minLength": 1 },
        "minItems": 1
      }
    },
    "required": ["verbs"]
  }
}

mode is not in required — from the source code, omitting mode falls through to append logic.

Configuration location: ~/.claude/settings.json (global) or .claude/settings.json (project level).

Customizing Spinner Tips

In addition to the verbs, the tip text shown during processing can also be customized. Structure confirmed from the JSON Schema:

{
  "spinnerTipsOverride": {
    "tips": [
      "Use /compact to compress the conversation and free up context window",
      "Shift+Tab to quickly toggle permission mode"
    ],
    "excludeDefault": true
  }
}

Set excludeDefault to true to show only your tips; set to false or omit to mix with the defaults.

A Few Interesting Facts

Observed directly from the source code, not speculation:

1. British and American spellings coexist: Philosophising (British) and Channelling (British) appear alongside Channeling (American).

2. Longest verbs: Flibbertigibbeting (18 letters) and Photosynthesizing (17 letters).

3. Plenty of coined words: Combobulating, Recombobulating, Gitifying, Quantumizing, and Symbioting are all non-standard English.

4. Completion verbs have counterparts among spinner verbs: Churned ↔ Churning, Cogitated ↔ Cogitating, Cooked ↔ Cooking, Crunched ↔ Crunching — though not every completion verb has a corresponding spinner verb (e.g., Baking exists for Baked, and Brewing exists for Brewed).

5. Cooking is the hidden throughline: About 20 culinary verbs appear in the spinner list, and 5 of the 8 completion verbs are cooking-related. The proportion jumps from 11% to 63%.

In Summary

Spinner verbs are a purely decorative feature with no effect on actual behavior. But they are part of Claude Code CLI’s brand personality — the differentiation from other AI coding assistants isn’t just about capability, it’s also in these small details.

If 185 default verbs aren’t enough, use append to add your own. If Flibbertigibbeting feels too chaotic, use replace to swap in something you prefer. Changes to the config file take effect immediately — no restart needed.

References

• Claude Code Official Docs: Feature Overview and Spinner Settings
• Claude Code GitHub Source Code (cli.js spinner verbs)
• Anthropic Official Blog: Claude Code Launch Announcement
• npm - @anthropic-ai/claude-code (spinner verbs customization docs)