sorry, I have just discovered that I actually don't need that, as cider is only activate when you jack-in

I found https://github.com/clojure-emacs/clojure-mode/issues/337 which had a solution to my specific issue from above ^^

@chadhs Did you try M-x customize-variable cider-mode-line?

@dangit i have not but i did see where it’s defined and modified it slightly. i didn’t want to rewrite a new function to tweak it further.

(setq cider-mode-line '(:eval (format " [%s]" (cider--modeline-info))))

i’ll give you suggestion a shot as well thnx

is there a way i could piggyback on clojure-mode's font lock setting without deriving my mode from clojure-mode?

Hmm, I suppose I should look at how the cider repl does it