Terminal theme

Keep Ghostty, fish, zsh, and starship visually consistent — one theme, no clashes. The default approach is the inherit model: Ghostty's theme defines the 16 ANSI colors (slots 0–15 + fg/bg), and the shells and prompt are configured with ANSI color names so they render with whatever Ghostty theme is active. Change the Ghostty theme → the whole terminal re-themes, one edit.

The golden rule is verification-first: prove coordination by auditing every surface for hardcoded hex (which won't follow the terminal) and rendering the ANSI palette everything shares.

Route to a workflow

No workflow named? (a bare /terminal-theme) — triage first: run scripts/theme_status.py:

• any hardcoded (…) surface → repair (or setup if none are converted yet).
• coordinated yes → report it and stop (offer upgrade to switch theme).

The two models

• Inherit (default, recommended). starship/fish/zsh use ANSI color names → they resolve to Ghostty's palette. One source of truth (the Ghostty theme), impossible to drift, no per-theme data. Trade-off: colors are the terminal's 16 slots, not a specific brand's exact hex.
• Matched (advanced). Each surface gets a theme's exact hex (a native fish/starship theme + Ghostty theme of the same name). Brand-accurate, but every switch re-applies all surfaces and each theme needs its mapping. Covered in upgrade.md.

The scripts (call these, don't re-derive them)

Read-only helpers in scripts/ — the mutation is editing config files (starship.toml, fish conf.d), these are the audit + verification around it.

Where each surface's theme lives

Core principles

1. Ghostty is the source of truth. In inherit mode, the only theme decision is the Ghostty theme. Everything else is configured once to follow it.
2. Hardcoded hex is the enemy of coordination. A #rrggbb in starship/fish/zsh pins that element regardless of the terminal theme → clash. scripts/theme_status.py flags it; convert to an ANSI name.
3. Verify by audit + eyeball. theme_status.py must show every surface inherits; then render theme_swatch.py and a glyph-heavy prompt in Ghostty to confirm they look like one theme.
4. Live-reload. Ghostty reloads with cmd+shift+,; open a new shell for fish/zsh color changes (colors are read at shell start). Say so rather than claiming an open shell changed.
5. Track it. starship.toml, config.fish (the fish color overrides), and fish's conf.d/fish_frozen_theme.fish are dotfiles — version them via the dotfiles skill so the coordinated theme is reproducible.

Settings

Read ~/.config/devenv/config.toml; if a [terminal-theme] section exists, use it as defaults (precedence: explicit > config > ask). Managed by the devenv skill. Keys honored:

• model — inherit (default) or matched.
• source — the surface that is the source of truth (default ghostty).
• theme — the current theme name (the Ghostty theme, e.g. Catppuccin Mocha).

Boundaries with the other skills

• ghostty-config owns the Ghostty theme line (the knob); this skill sets which theme and makes the others follow. shell-sync owns fish/zsh sync + the starship prompt init; this skill owns the colors in starship.toml and fish's theme (config.fish overrides). Change a shell's prompt structure in shell-sync; change its palette here.

Safety

• Back up starship.toml / fish config before rewriting palettes (timestamped copy).
• Converting to ANSI changes the exact colors (brand hex → terminal slots). Confirm the user wants inherit over matched before rewriting a curated palette.
• fish loads config.fish after conf.d/* (incl. fish_frozen_theme.fish), so per-color overrides belong in config.fish (fish's own guidance) — that's where a readable fish_color_autosuggestion gray goes. A stray hardcoded color there still wins, so audit it.
• Autosuggestion is the one deliberate non-inherit: the 16-ANSI palette has no readable mid-gray, so a fixed dim gray (8a8a8a) is expected there — theme_status.py exempts it.