# 21 — Prompt redesign

**Status:** done

Reconsider the prompt system. Some observations:

## Functional prompts via metatables

Functional prompts can be achieved in pure Lua without special support:

```lua
_PROMPT = setmetatable({}, { __tostring = function(self)
    local user = os.getenv("USER") or os.getenv("USERNAME") or "user"
    local cwd  = os.getenv("PWD") or io.popen("pwd"):read("*l") or "?"
    return string.format("%s:%s$ ", user, cwd)
end })
```

This suggests our bespoke prompt implementation (issue #09) may be overengineered. A template-based approach or just documenting the metatable trick might suffice.

## Prompt2 depth

Prompt2 is rigid — opening deeper and deeper blocks results in a prompt at the same level. Bash doesn't do depth indication either, so maybe this is fine. Options:

- Pass depth into `_PROMPT2` somehow
- Add indentation (spaces/tabs) after prompt2 on the C side
- Accept it as-is (bash doesn't do this either)