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Feature: custom default color schemes for terminal/PowerShell instances #4
Description
Summary
Allow users to configure custom default color schemes that are automatically applied to new terminal/PowerShell instances spawned inside wmux.
Today, newly spawned shells fall back to whatever the host terminal profile provides, which makes it hard to:
- Maintain a consistent look across panes and sessions
- Match wmux visuals (e.g. the browser panel theme) with the shell color palette
- Differentiate roles of panes (e.g. a red-tinted prod shell vs. a green dev shell) at a glance
Proposed behavior
- Provide a configurable theme/palette applied as the default for any new terminal or PowerShell instance created by wmux.
- Support at minimum:
- Foreground / background colors
- ANSI 16-color palette (normal + bright)
- Optional cursor color
- Allow configuration via a config file (e.g.
~/.wmux/config.tomlor equivalent) and/or a CLI flag when spawning a pane. - Ship a small set of built-in presets (e.g.
dark,light,solarized,dracula) that users can select by name. - Allow per-pane overrides so a specific shell can opt into a different scheme without changing the global default.
Example (illustrative)
[terminal.colors]
default = "dracula"
[terminal.colors.schemes.prod]
background = "#2b0b0b"
foreground = "#ffdddd"
cursor = "#ff5555"wmux pane new --shell pwsh --color-scheme prodMotivation / use cases
- Visual consistency between wmux UI and shells
- Quickly distinguishing environments (dev / staging / prod) by color
- Accessibility: users who need higher contrast or specific palettes shouldn't have to reconfigure every spawned shell manually
Alternatives considered
- Configuring color schemes at the OS terminal level (Windows Terminal profile, etc.) — works, but doesn't let wmux differentiate panes or apply per-session overrides.
- Running
Set-PSReadLineOption/ ANSI escape scripts in each new shell — brittle, requires shell-specific setup.
Happy to help refine the config shape or contribute a PR if the direction is welcome.
Reacted by Amir
Activity
amirlehmam commentedon Apr 18, 2026
Hi @Xilous — shipped in v0.7.1. Thanks for the well-scoped request, the example config was basically the API I ended up building.
What's in the release
12 bundled presets (Ghostty
.themeformat underresources/themes/):Dracula, Solarized Dark/Light, Nord, Gruvbox Dark, One Dark, Tokyo Night, Catppuccin Mocha, GitHub Light, Monokai — plus Prod Red, Staging Amber, Dev Green as ready-made environment tints for the exact dev/staging/prod use case you described.
Full ANSI 16-color palette + FG/BG + cursor + selection colors, matching your minimum bar.
Global default — Settings > Terminal > Default scheme (dropdown auto-populated from bundled themes + any user-defined schemes).
Per-pane overrides via CLI:
User-defined schemes — Settings > Terminal > Custom schemes. Partial overrides (you only specify
background/foreground/cursor) layered on top of a bundled base theme. Addressable by name in--color-scheme, persisted with your settings.Live reload — changing the default or editing a user scheme repaints every open terminal immediately. No restart, no PTY recreation.
How the config shape landed
I went with the same semantics as your TOML example, just expressed through the existing settings store + bundled theme files:
terminalPrefs.theme→ yourdefault = "dracula"terminalPrefs.userColorSchemes→ your[terminal.colors.schemes.prod]block (keyed by name, partial overrides)--color-scheme <name>→ your--color-scheme prodResolution priority: per-surface override → global default → Monokai fallback.
No standalone
~/.wmux/config.tomlfile yet — wmux persists settings through the existing store, so adding a TOML reader would just be a different path to the same state. Happy to add it if you'd prefer config-as-code over the settings UI; open a follow-up and we'll land it.Install
Grab
wmux-0.7.1-win-x64.zipfrom the release, extract, runwmux.exe. If Windows SmartScreen flags the zip after download: right-click the archive > Properties > Unblock before extracting.Try
wmux list-themesonce it's running to see the available names, thenwmux split --color-scheme "Prod Red"for the classic red-tinted prod pane. Feedback welcome.feat(config): add ~/.wmux/config.toml reader + 17 bundled themes
amirlehmam commentedon Apr 18, 2026
Follow-up — shipped the two things I left as "possible next steps" in the previous comment. 🎯
v0.7.2 (release, docs):
1.
~/.wmux/config.tomlreaderYour exact example from the issue now works verbatim:
Plus a fuller surface for the rest of
TerminalPrefs:New CLI:
Precedence: built-in defaults → Settings UI →
config.toml→ per-pane overrides (--color-scheme). File wins at startup, app wins at runtime — edit in the UI without your dotfile clobbering your live tweaks, thenwmux reload-configwhenever you want the file to take over again.The parser is hand-rolled (zero deps, to dodge the native-module traps this repo has), covered by 13 unit tests.
wmux config showreports per-key parse errors without aborting the whole file, so a typo in one scheme doesn't nuke the rest of your config.2. More bundled presets
Went from 12 → 29. Added: Ayu Dark / Mirage / Light, Cobalt 2, Material Dark, Monokai Pro, Palenight, Oceanic Next, Everforest Dark, Rose Pine, Kanagawa, Horizon, SynthWave 84, Zenburn, GitHub Dark, Night Owl, Nightfly.
All work as
default = "..."in TOML, as--color-scheme "..."on the CLI, and in the Settings UI dropdown.wmux list-themesprints the current list.Install: grab
wmux-0.7.2-win-x64.zipfrom the release page, right-click → Properties → Unblock, extract, run.If you want a specific extra theme or a config key I didn't ship, reopen or drop a comment — easy to add. 🚀
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