Unspin

Unspin is a coding agent plugin that replaces spinners with live progress bars and step tracking for shell commands.

Unspin replaces generic loading spinners in coding agents with live progress bars, step names, elapsed time, and estimated times of arrival. It teaches agents to mark steps in batched commands so users can see exactly what is running, whether it is building, testing, or downloading files. The tool writes events to a local file read by a plugin and status line renderer, avoiding network traffic or background daemons. It supports Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, Cursor, and other agents, running on macOS and Linux. Users install it as a plugin, via an installer script, or by adding a skill to their agent.

Unspin at a glance

Best for: Software engineer
Runs on: macOS, Linux, API
Pricing: Free and open source under the MIT license
Released: October 2026
Category: AI coding tool
Website: github.com/nkyriazis/unspin

Key features

Tracks steps of batched agent shell commands
Displays progress bars with time and ETA
Runs background jobs with visible progress
Detects interrupted steps when processes die
Sends reminders when agents skip instrumentation
Supports status lines and second terminal views
Outputs events to local text files

Use it for

Tracking long-running builds and test suites in Claude Code
Viewing file loops and server wait times live
Monitoring background shell commands in a tmux pane
Checking progress across multiple AI coding agents

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