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Custom themes

dirge ships two built-in palettes and supports user-defined themes via JSON files in ~/.config/dirge/.

Built-ins

  • phosphor (default) — 80s CRT green. Errors red, warnings yellow.
  • plain — white assistant text, cyan accents, gray dim.

Switch via theme in ~/.config/dirge/config.json:

{
  "theme": "plain"
}

Custom themes

Any value other than phosphor / plain is treated as the stem of a theme file: dirge looks for ~/.config/dirge/<name>.theme.json. If found, its color fields override the phosphor preset; anything not present in the file stays phosphor. If the file is missing or malformed, dirge falls back to phosphor with a warning rather than refusing to start.

Format

Every field is optional. A minimal one-color override:

{
  "accent": "magenta"
}

A fully-custom palette:

{
  "agent": "#88ccff",
  "user":  "#ffaa66",
  "system": "darkgray",
  "tool":   "darkcyan",
  "perm":   "yellow",
  "result": "darkgray",
  "critic":   "#c9a9ff",
  "thinking": "#8a9c90",
  "error":  "red",
  "warn":   "yellow",
  "accent": "#ff66cc",
  "dim":    "darkgray",
  "header": "cyan",
  "divider": "darkgray",
  "banner_primary":   "#aa88ff",
  "banner_secondary": "darkmagenta",
  "input_bg": "#1a1a22",
  "label":  "MIDNIGHT"
}

Color values

Each color field accepts three forms:

  1. Named color (case-insensitive, _ and - separators both work):

    • "black", "red", "green", "yellow", "blue", "magenta", "cyan", "white", "grey" (or "gray")
    • "darkred", "darkgreen", "darkyellow", "darkblue", "darkmagenta", "darkcyan", "darkgrey" (or "darkgray")
    • "reset" (terminal default)

  2. Hex RGB: "#rrggbb" (six hex digits). Renders as truecolor; terminals without truecolor support degrade gracefully.

  3. 256-color palette index: a plain integer 0–255 (no quotes).

Field reference

Field What it colors
agent Assistant chat text
user User message prefix (<you>)
user_input The bottom input-bar text you type (defaults to white)
system System messages — context loaded, compactions
tool Tool chamber headers (╭─ BASH ─ …)
perm Permission prompts (loud — yellow/red recommended)
result Secondary result text (slash output, dim tool stdout)
critic In-loop critic's review voice (<critic>)
thinking Agent reasoning / "thinking" register (placeholder, Ctrl+O expand, Ctrl+R stream)
error Hard errors (red recommended; keeps semantic urgency)
warn Warnings (yellow recommended)
accent Headers, focused picker rows, banner accent
dim Placeholders, separators, low-noise hints
header Right-panel headers
divider Horizontal divider line
banner_primary Welcome banner primary stroke
banner_secondary Welcome banner border / decorations
background Terminal background fill, painted behind every cell (foregrounds preserved). Use "reset" to keep the terminal's own background — that's the plain default; phosphor uses a near-black #222222.
input_bg Background of the bottom input box, painted over background. Keeps the composer a dark field so user_input (white) stays readable even on a light terminal / light theme. Both presets default to #222222; use "reset" to opt out and match background.
label Human-readable name shown in the banner

Activating

  1. Create ~/.config/dirge/midnight.theme.json with your override.
  2. Set theme: "midnight" in ~/.config/dirge/config.json.
  3. Restart dirge.

Errors

If something's wrong dirge prints a single warning on startup and uses phosphor:

warning: theme 'midnight' could not be loaded (parse /home/y/.config/dirge/midnight.theme.json: trailing comma at line 4); using phosphor.
Custom themes live at ~/.config/dirge/<name>.theme.json.

The error message names the file path so it's clear what dirge was trying to load.