What Are Claude Code's Thinking Verbs (Moonwalking, Discombobulating) and How to Customize Them

Have you ever noticed the verbs used by Claude Code when it's thinking? Words like discombobulating, moonwalking, whatchamacalliting, and hullabalooing are the defaults in Claude Code. But did you know you can make your own list or have Claude Code create a list for you? In this Claude Code tutorial on thinking verbs, I'm going to explain how to make them say anything you want with a couple of examples you can use today.

Let's say you're a fan of Doctor Who and you want your thinking verbs to use words associated with that series. The easiest way is to tell Claude Code to change your thinking verbs to use Doctor Who references:

Use this prompt: Change the thinking verbs to Doctor Who references

Claude code will then modify ~/.claude/settings.json so that the thinking verbs apply globally.

 Read file

  Read(~/.claude/settings.json)

 Do you want to proceed?    
 ❯ 1. Yes
   2. Yes, allow reading from .claude/ during this session
   3. No

 Esc to cancel · Tab to amend                                                                                                           

● Read 1 file (ctrl+o to expand)                                                                                                          

● Update(~/.claude/settings.json)                                                                                                         
  ⎿  Added 24 lines, removed 1 line                                                                                                       
       9        "Write"                                                                                                            
      10      ]                                                                                                                           
      11    },                                                                                                                            
      12 -"syntaxHighlightingDisabled": true                                                                                              
      12 +  "spinnerVerbs": {                                                                                                             
      13 +    "mode": "replace",                                                                                                        
      14 +    "verbs": [                                                                                                                  
      15 +      "Regenerating",                                                                                                         
      16 +      "Sonic Screwdriving",                                                                                                     
      17 +      "Reversing the Polarity",                                                                                                 
      18 +      "Wibbly Wobbling",                                                                                                 
      19 +      "Exterminating",                                                                                                   
      20 +      "Dalekifying",                                                                                                     
      21 +      "Time Vortexing",                                                                                                  
      22 +      "TARDIS Parking",                                                                                                  
      23 +      "Cybermen Converting",                                                                                             
      24 +      "Timey Wimeying",                                                                                                  
      25 +      "Gallifreying",                                                                                                    
      26 +      "Weeping Angeling",                                                                                                
      27 +      "Bigger on the Inside",                                                                                            
      28 +      "Running Down Corridors",                                                                                          
      29 +      "Psychic Papering",                                                                                                
      30 +      "Allons-y-ing",                                                                                                    
      31 +      "Geronimo-ing",                                                                                                    
      32 +      "Master Planing"                                                                                                   
      33 +    ]                                                                                                                    
      34 +  },                                                                                                                     
      35 +  "syntaxHighlightingDisabled": true                                                                                     
      36  }

● Done. Your thinking verbs are now Doctor Who references, including classics like "Wibbly Wobbling", "Reversing the Polarity", "Timey Wimeying", and the Doctor's catchphrases "Allons-y-ing" and "Geronimo-ing".

Now when Claude Code is thinking, you'll see thinking verbs associated with Doctor Who:

But what if you want to create your own list? Maybe you want Claude-Code-themed spinner verbs? Update your ~/.claude/settings.json file with this:

❯ Update the spinner verbs in ~/.claude/settings.json with this JSON:

{
  "spinnerVerbs": {
    "mode": "replace",
    "verbs": [
      "Ignoring-your-CLAUDE.md",
      "Compacting-your-context",
      "Forgetting-everything",
      "Burning-your-tokens",
      "Hallucinating-confidently",
      "Asking-for-permission",
      "Dangerously-skipping-permissions",
      "Rewriting-your-entire-codebase",
      "Reading-the-CLAUDE.md-this-time",
      "Spawning-subagents",
      "Exceeding-your-API-plan",
      "Overwriting-your-file",
      "Installing-unnecessary-dependencies",
      "Refactoring-what-you-didn't-ask-for",
      "Apologizing-in-advance",
      "Creating-twelve-new-files",
      "Deleting-your-tests"
    ]
  }
}

Done. "Deleting-your-tests" is my favorite.

Now when Claude Code thinks, you'll see some spinner verbs that may make you laugh, or recall traumatic Claude Code memories.

With so much emphasis on anyone being able to create their own applications, it's good to stop every so often and think of something fun to do with Claude Code.