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Ambiguous status line labels for 5h and weekly limits make red usage indicators confusing #24274

@Roland013

Description

@Roland013

Issue

The compact Codex CLI status line labels context usage differently from the 5-hour and weekly usage limits, which makes the color semantics confusing.

Example status line:

gpt-5.5 high · ~/code_project · Context 0% used · 5h 96% · weekly 99%

In this view, Context 0% used is clearly labeled as a percentage used and counts upward. However, 5h 96% and weekly 99% are unlabeled. Because many quota/status UIs show “remaining” capacity, the red color can look backwards or alarming for the wrong reason unless the user already knows these values mean “used”.

Why this is confusing

The status line mixes explicit and implicit semantics:

  • Context 0% used explicitly says used
  • 5h 96% omits whether this is used or remaining
  • weekly 99% omits whether this is used or remaining

When the 5-hour and weekly values are red, users may interpret them as “96% remaining” and “99% remaining”, which makes the red styling look wrong. If they actually mean “used”, then the red styling is correct, but the label is too compact to make that clear.

Proposed solution

Make the rate-limit status line segments use the same explicit wording as context usage.

For example:

gpt-5.5 high · ~/code_project · Context 0% used · 5h 96% used · weekly 99% used

Alternatively, if the product prefers showing remaining capacity, invert the values and label them explicitly:

gpt-5.5 high · ~/code_project · Context 0% used · 5h 4% left · weekly 1% left

The important part is that all compact status-line percentages should declare their direction: used, left, or remaining.

Expected behavior

A user should be able to understand the status line without knowing implementation details or checking /status.

The status line should make it immediately clear whether each percentage is counting upward toward exhaustion or downward toward zero.

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    TUIIssues related to the terminal user interface: text input, menus and dialogs, and terminal displayenhancementNew feature or requestrate-limitsIssues related to rate limits, quotas, and token usage reporting

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