rnabioco · jayhesselberth · Aug 26, 2026 · Aug 26, 2026 · Aug 26, 2026
diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -8,6 +8,37 @@ and this project adheres to
 
 ## [Unreleased]
 
+## [0.5.1] - 2026-08-26
+
+### Changed
+
+- Everything the session has to say about itself moved below the status bar,
+  onto lines of its own. The pane border was carrying three unrelated things
+  at once — `OVER QUOTA`, `SHORT SESSION`, and a scrolling offer to install
+  the Claude Code hooks — sharing one rule and taking turns for it. The line
+  you glance at for the job id was busy enough to stop reading.
+
+  There are now up to two lines under the session line, each present only
+  while it has something on it: warnings nearest (the two share a line, since
+  both hold for the whole session), then the Claude Code hint, furthest away
+  because it is an offer rather than something to act on. The pane border is
+  back to being a plain rule with no text. The status bar grows and shrinks
+  with the notices, so a session with nothing to say is exactly as tall as it
+  was before.
+
+  The hint no longer scrolls. It scrolled because a 44-column window was all
+  the border could give it without swallowing the rule; a full-width line of
+  its own fits the whole sentence in an 80-column terminal. That also retires
+  the 0.3s redraw the marquee forced on every session that showed it.
+
+  One tmux subtlety, found by rendering it rather than by reading: setting one
+  element of an option array at session scope replaces the whole array for
+  that session instead of overlaying the global one, so a session-scoped
+  `status-format[1]` leaves `status-format[0]` empty and the session line —
+  the thing the notices are meant to sit under — silently disappears. The
+  extra indices are set globally instead, which leaves the default index 0
+  alone.
+
 ## [0.5.0] - 2026-08-26
 
 ### Added
@@ -471,7 +502,8 @@ First tagged release.
   installers (user, system-wide, and per-node fan-out), and a
   `bodhi-compute` Claude Code skill.
 
-[Unreleased]: https://github.com/rnabioco/sinteractive/compare/v0.5.0...HEAD
+[Unreleased]: https://github.com/rnabioco/sinteractive/compare/v0.5.1...HEAD
+[0.5.1]: https://github.com/rnabioco/sinteractive/compare/v0.5.0...v0.5.1
 [0.5.0]: https://github.com/rnabioco/sinteractive/compare/v0.4.0...v0.5.0
 [0.4.0]: https://github.com/rnabioco/sinteractive/compare/v0.3.0...v0.4.0
 [0.3.0]: https://github.com/rnabioco/sinteractive/compare/v0.2.2...v0.3.0

diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
@@ -184,19 +184,22 @@ sequenceDiagram
     Note over C: you work here
 ```
 
-## The notice line
+## Notice lines
 
-The rule between your pane and the status bar is normally empty. When there is
-something you should know, it carries it — full width, so a message is
-readable at a glance rather than crammed next to the clock.
-
-Three things can appear there, ranked, because something you must act on
-outranks something you should know:
+When something about the session needs saying, it gets a line of its own under
+the status bar rather than a corner of one that is already busy. Each line is
+there only while its message is, and takes a row of pane height while it is:
 
 ```
-━━━ ⚠ OVER QUOTA  30.2T / 30T · over by 204.8G │ SHORT SESSION · ends before monthly-maint at Thu 06:00 ━━━
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+ ● session 245772 | compute07                                     Help: Ctrl+b h | Detach: Ctrl+b d
+ ⚠ OVER QUOTA  30.2T / 30T · over by 204.8G │ SHORT SESSION · ends before monthly-maint at Thu 06:00
+ Claude Code: run sinteractive --install-claude to enable the skills and hooks
 ```
 
+Nearest the session line are the warnings. Both stay true for the whole
+session, so they share their line rather than taking turns.
+
 **Over quota** (red). Checked every 10 minutes against the cluster's quota
 daemons. The check is cached per user, not per session, so having six sessions
 open does not mean six times the polling.
@@ -208,13 +211,17 @@ sinteractive --check-quota      # re-checks now, updates every open session
 ```
 
 That is also the command to hand an agent — it clears the warning within a
-tick of the space actually being freed.
+tick of the space actually being freed, and the line goes away with it.
 
 **Short session** (yellow). Shown when the request was trimmed to end before a
 maintenance window — see below.
 
-**Claude Code hint** (yellow, scrolling). Only when nothing more important
-wants the line, and only while `claude` is actually running in the session.
+**Claude Code hint** (yellow). Bottom line, furthest from the session line
+because it is an offer rather than something to act on. Shown only while
+`claude` is running in a session where the hooks are not registered, and gone
+once they are.
+
+The rule between your pane and the status bar carries no text at all.
 
 ## Maintenance windows
 

diff --git a/docs/deploy.md b/docs/deploy.md
@@ -67,7 +67,7 @@ script there, so a copy may be executing while you install.
 
 ```bash
 make nodes-check
-# compute00    sinteractive=0.5.0  assets=yes  tmux 3.7c
+# compute00    sinteractive=0.5.1  assets=yes  tmux 3.7c
 # compute01    sinteractive=unknown  assets=no  tmux 3.7b
 # compgpu01    unreachable
 ```

diff --git a/docs/scripting.md b/docs/scripting.md
@@ -207,10 +207,10 @@ state file and only falls back to the scheduler when it is stale, so a quiet
 session costs nothing.
 
 While Claude Code is running in a session whose hooks are not registered yet,
-the yellow rule between the pane and the status bar carries a centred,
-scrolling `sinteractive --install-claude` notice. It is gated on a live `claude` process,
-so it never appears for people who don't use Claude Code, and it clears once
-the hooks are registered.
+a `sinteractive --install-claude` hint sits on the bottom status line, below
+the session line and below any warnings. It is gated on a live `claude`
+process, so it never appears for people who don't use Claude Code, and it
+clears once the hooks are registered — taking its line with it.
 
 Hooks fire at turn and tool boundaries, so work already in flight cannot be
 warned about — put long work in its own allocation, which outlives the

diff --git a/man/sinteractive.1 b/man/sinteractive.1
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-.TH SINTERACTIVE 1 "August 2026" "sinteractive 0.5.0" "User Commands"
+.TH SINTERACTIVE 1 "August 2026" "sinteractive 0.5.1" "User Commands"
 .SH NAME
 sinteractive \- start an interactive tmux session on a Slurm compute node
 .SH SYNOPSIS
@@ -272,7 +272,8 @@ Sessions poll this on their own every
 .B $SINTERACTIVE_QUOTA_POLL
 seconds (default 600) and show a red
 .B OVER QUOTA
-notice above the status line while it holds. Running
+notice on a second status line, below the session line, while it holds.
+Running
 .B \-\-check\-quota
 after freeing space clears that notice within a tick rather than at the end
 of the poll interval, which is what makes it useful to an agent that has just
@@ -439,6 +440,23 @@ terminal tab is flagged even when you are looking elsewhere.
 About ten seconds before the limit, a notice is printed in every pane
 and the session shuts down cleanly, so the job completes instead of
 being killed at timeout.
+.PP
+Nothing else is crowded into that line. Anything the session has to say
+about itself appears below it, on status lines of its own, each present
+only while it has something to say and costing a row of pane height only
+while it is there. Nearest the session line are the warnings:
+.B "OVER QUOTA"
+in red (see
+.BR \-\-check\-quota )
+and
+.B "SHORT SESSION"
+in yellow, the latter when the request was trimmed to end before a
+maintenance reservation. Both hold for the life of the session, so when
+both apply they share the line. Below them, furthest from the session
+line because it is only an offer, is the Claude Code hint (see
+.BR "CLAUDE CODE INTEGRATION" ).
+.PP
+The rule between the pane and the status bar carries no text at all.
 .SH SCRIPTING AND AGENTS
 Headless workflows (e.g. Claude Code) can launch and inspect sessions
 without attaching:
@@ -541,13 +559,12 @@ is available; see
 .BR \-\-install\-claude .
 .PP
 While Claude Code is running in a session whose integration is not yet
-registered, the yellow rule between the pane and the status bar carries a
-centred, scrolling
+registered, a yellow
 .B "sinteractive \-\-install\-claude"
-notice. The rule is full width and otherwise empty, so this costs nothing
-in the status line itself; the notice scrolls through a fixed 44-column
-window at about three columns a second, so it reads the same at any
-terminal width. It appears only while a
+hint sits on the bottom status line, below any warnings \(em furthest
+from the session line, because it is an offer rather than something to
+act on. It is a whole line and fits an 80-column terminal, so it is
+read at a glance rather than scrolled past. It appears only while a
 .B claude
 process is actually running, and clears once the hooks are registered, so
 it never nags anyone who does not use Claude Code.

diff --git a/pixi.toml b/pixi.toml
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 [workspace]
 name = "sinteractive"
 # Keep in sync with VERSION in `sinteractive` and the release tag (vX.Y.Z).
-version = "0.5.0"
+version = "0.5.1"
 description = "Documentation site for sinteractive"
 channels = ["conda-forge"]
 platforms = ["linux-64", "osx-arm64"]