What Is Claude's 'Nucleating'? How Spinner Verbs Work and How to Turn Them Off

What Is Claude's "Nucleating"?

"Nucleating" is one of the spinner verbs that Claude Code displays in the terminal while processing. In English, it means "to form a nucleus" or "to promote crystallization" — a term used in chemistry and physics.

In Claude Code, while the model is generating a response, instead of a simple blinking cursor, a random gerund (present participle) is displayed in orange in a spinning animation. "Nucleating" became particularly notable as one of the more eye-catching words in that list.

This is not a bug or an error — it is a deliberately implemented visual feature by Anthropic. It was introduced to improve the user's waiting experience by providing visual movement during processing.

Why Do Spinner Verbs Exist?

Generating AI responses can take anywhere from a few seconds to tens of seconds. Many users feel uneasy when nothing moves on the terminal, wondering if it has frozen. To address this, Anthropic implemented interactive feedback combining a spinning animation with playful vocabulary.

The words change randomly each time and are selected from coined terms and specialized vocabulary that evoke thinking, transformation, and exploration — rather than a plain "Loading..." or "...". While native English speakers appreciate the sense of "the AI is thinking," users who are less familiar with English or who are in the middle of focused work may find it distracting.

The fact that this setting can be changed was discovered and shared in the developer community around March 2026 (source: Agent Wars — You can turn Claude's most annoying feature off).

A List of Common Spinner Verbs

There is no complete list in the official documentation, but the following are representative spinner verbs confirmed by the community.

This list may change as Claude Code is updated. The words are selected randomly from a list managed internally by Anthropic.

How to Turn Off Spinner Verbs

Spinner verbs can be disabled by editing ~/.claude/settings.json. If the settings file does not yet exist, create a new one.

Steps

1. Open ~/.claude/settings.json in any editor from the terminal
2. Add the following JSON (merge appropriately if the file already has content)
3. Save the file and restart Claude Code

{
  "spinnerVerbs": {
    "mode": "replace",
    "verbs": [""]
  }
}

Specifying mode: "replace" completely replaces the default list of verbs. If you put only an empty string "" in verbs, the spinner's rotation mechanism continues but the text becomes empty, effectively hiding the verb display.

Note: The spinner animation itself continues. The processing indicator does not disappear entirely — only the display text becomes empty.

Troubleshooting If the Setting Does Not Take Effect

• Check for JSON syntax errors (watch out for trailing commas and unclosed quotation marks)
• Confirm the file path is ~/.claude/settings.json (under the home directory)
• Fully quit Claude Code and then restart it

Customization: Setting Your Own Verb List

Instead of removing verbs entirely, you can replace them with words of your own choosing. Use mode: "replace" and specify any array of strings.

{
  "spinnerVerbs": {
    "mode": "replace",
    "verbs": ["Thinking", "Working", "Processing"]
  }
}

With the above setting, "Thinking," "Working," and "Processing" are displayed randomly. This is useful if you want simple, easy-to-understand words.

Adding to the Existing List (append mode)

If you want to keep the default verbs while adding your own words, use mode: "append".

{
  "spinnerVerbs": {
    "mode": "append",
    "verbs": ["Hacking", "Brewing"]
  }
}

In append mode, the specified words are added to Anthropic's default list. This is an option for when you want to mix in your own favorite words for fun.

Overall Structure of settings.json

~/.claude/settings.json is the user-level configuration file for Claude Code. Per-project settings can be written in <project root>/.claude/settings.json to override user settings.

spinnerVerbs is one of those configuration entries — a settings block dedicated to the spinner display. When combining it with other settings, write it as follows:

{
  "theme": "dark",
  "spinnerVerbs": {
    "mode": "replace",
    "verbs": [""]
  }
}

Since the settings file is in JSON format, a typo can cause an error when Claude Code starts. It is safer to validate the syntax with a JSON validator after editing.

If "Nucleating" Keeps Displaying for a Long Time

If the processing display — such as "Nucleating" — does not stop for more than a minute, the task may be taking a long time, or in rare cases the stream may have stalled.

Try the following steps:

1. Press Ctrl+C to interrupt the command
2. Run claude --resume to attempt to resume the interrupted conversation
3. Check for error output in the log files under ~/.claude/logs/

However, for complex tasks (processing large numbers of files, generating long responses, etc.), taking several minutes is within the normal range. As long as the spinner is running, you can generally assume that processing is continuing.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Is Nucleating a bug? A: No, it is not a bug. It is the display text of Claude Code's spinner verb feature, indicating that the tool is operating normally during processing.

Q: Can I set Japanese verbs? A: Technically, you can specify Japanese strings in the verbs array, but display may break due to font or character width issues in the terminal. Using English words or an empty string is more stable.

Q: Can I apply the same setting to everyone on my team? A: The user-level ~/.claude/settings.json is a personal setting. If you want a team-wide setting, write it in .claude/settings.json at the project root and commit it to the repository so it applies to everyone.

Q: Does this setting also work on Claude.ai (the web version)? A: spinnerVerbs is a setting exclusive to Claude Code (CLI). It does not affect the Claude.ai web version or mobile app.

Spinner verbs are a small touch of humor built in by Anthropic, but if they feel like a distraction during focused work, a single line change in settings.json is all it takes to turn them off. The customization options are flexible, and it is worth trying as a small tuning to make your terminal experience more comfortable.