Themes

Customize Ghostty’s appearance with built-in and custom themes

Ghostty supports a powerful theming system that allows you to customize colors and appearance. You can use built-in themes, create custom themes, or define colors directly in your configuration.

Using Built-in Themes

Ghostty ships with many built-in themes. To see all available themes:

ghostty +list-themes

Setting a Theme

Add the theme configuration to your config file:

theme = Rose Pine

Themes are searched in two locations:

1. Your configuration directory: ~/.config/ghostty/themes/
2. Ghostty’s resource directory (built-in themes)

Light and Dark Mode Themes

You can specify different themes for light and dark mode:

theme = light:Rose Pine Dawn,dark:Rose Pine

Both light and dark must be specified in this format. The theme will automatically switch based on your desktop environment’s appearance setting.

Whitespace around theme names is trimmed, and the order of light/dark doesn’t matter.

Custom Themes

Creating a Custom Theme

1. Create the themes directory

   mkdir -p ~/.config/ghostty/themes
   
2. Create your theme file

   Theme files use the same syntax as Ghostty’s main configuration file:

   ~/.config/ghostty/themes/my-theme

   # Basic colors
   background = #1a1b26
   foreground = #c0caf5
   
   # Cursor colors
   cursor-color = #c0caf5
   cursor-text = #1a1b26
   
   # Selection colors
   selection-foreground = #c0caf5
   selection-background = #33467c
   
   # Palette (0-15: ANSI colors)
   palette = 0=#15161e
   palette = 1=#f7768e
   palette = 2=#9ece6a
   palette = 3=#e0af68
   palette = 4=#7aa2f7
   palette = 5=#bb9af7
   palette = 6=#7dcfff
   palette = 7=#a9b1d6
   palette = 8=#414868
   palette = 9=#f7768e
   palette = 10=#9ece6a
   palette = 11=#e0af68
   palette = 12=#7aa2f7
   palette = 13=#bb9af7
   palette = 14=#7dcfff
   palette = 15=#c0caf5
   
3. Apply your theme

   ~/.config/ghostty/config

   theme = my-theme
   

Using Absolute Paths

You can also reference a theme file with an absolute path:

theme = /path/to/my-theme-file

Theme files can set any configuration option. Only use themes from trusted sources.

Color Configuration

Basic Colors

Colors can be specified as hex codes or named X11 colors:

Hex Colors

background = #282C34
foreground = #FFFFFF

background = black
foreground = white

The 256 Color Palette

The palette configuration sets colors 0-255 for terminal applications:

# Format: palette = N=COLOR
palette = 0=#000000   # Black
palette = 1=#FF0000   # Red
palette = 2=#00FF00   # Green
palette = 3=#FFFF00   # Yellow
palette = 4=#0000FF   # Blue
palette = 5=#FF00FF   # Magenta
palette = 6=#00FFFF   # Cyan
palette = 7=#FFFFFF   # White

The index can be decimal, binary (0b), octal (0o), or hexadecimal (0x).

Automatic Palette Generation

Since version 1.3.0, Ghostty can automatically generate the extended 256-color palette (indices 16-255) from your base 16 ANSI colors:

# Enable automatic palette generation (default: true)
palette-generate = true

This allows theme authors to specify only the base 16 colors while maintaining a cohesive color scheme throughout the palette.

Advanced Color Features

Cursor Colors

Customize the cursor and its text:

cursor-color = #FF0000
cursor-text = #FFFFFF
cursor-opacity = 1.0

You can also match cell colors:

cursor-color = cell-foreground
cursor-text = cell-background

Selection Colors

selection-foreground = #FFFFFF
selection-background = #0000FF

Or match cell colors (available since 1.2.0):

selection-foreground = cell-foreground
selection-background = cell-background

Minimum Contrast

Ensure text is always readable by setting a minimum contrast ratio:

# Value between 1 and 21 (WCAG 2.0 contrast ratio)
minimum-contrast = 1.1   # Avoid invisible text
# minimum-contrast = 3   # Good readability
# minimum-contrast = 7   # WCAG AAA compliance

Examples

Dark Theme

theme = Tokyo Night
background-opacity = 0.95

Light Theme

theme = Rose Pine Dawn
minimum-contrast = 3

Auto-switching

theme = light:Github Light,dark:Github Dark

Custom Colors

background = #1e1e2e
foreground = #cdd6f4
cursor-color = #f5e0dc

Known Issues

• macOS: Titlebar tab style is not updated when switching between light and dark themes
• Theme overrides: Colors specified via background, foreground, palette, etc. will override theme colors

Related Configuration

• background-opacity - Set terminal transparency
• background-image - Add a background image
• See the color configuration reference for all color options