The surge in drug-resistant bacterial infections threatens to overburden healthcare systems worldwide. Bacterial cell walls are essential to bacteria, thus making them unique targets for the development of antibiotics. We describe a cellular reporter to directly monitor the phenotypic switch in drug-resistant bacteria with temporal resolution. Vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) escape the bactericidal action of vancomycin by chemically modifying their cell-wall precursors. A synthetic cell-wall analogue was developed to hijack the biosynthetic rewiring of drug-resistant cells in response to antibiotics. Our study provides the first in vivo VanX reporter agent that responds to cell-wall alteration in drug-resistant bacteria. Cellular reporters that reveal mechanisms related to antibiotic resistance can potentially have a significant impact on the fundamental understanding of cellular adaption to antibiotics.