Color themes

Configure audited color palettes and font decoration across the aibox terminal toolchain.

Color themes#

aibox themes are coordinated semantic systems, not a terminal-background setting. One selection controls terminal chrome, syntax, diffs, status states, prompts, file managers, Git tools, pagers, and supported AI TUIs.

Open the complete 76-variant screenshot gallery.

Configure a theme#

Choose a family, light or dark mode, an optional family variant, and a font-decoration level:

toml

[customization]
theme = "projectious"
mode = "dark"          # auto | light | dark
variant = "deep"       # optional; family-specific
emphasis = "auto"      # auto | full | standard | minimal | none

Run aibox apply after editing. mode = "auto" follows the host appearance when aibox can detect it and otherwise resolves to dark. Containers do not receive host appearance changes live, so apply again after changing the host setting.

Legacy concrete names such as catppuccin-mocha still parse, but the family form is canonical.

Font decoration#

Color is only one information channel. emphasis carries meaning through bold, italic, dim, underline, and strikethrough where the target tool supports them.

Value	Decorations	Intended use
`auto`	Capability detection, then graceful degradation	Recommended default
`full`	Bold, italic, dim, underline, strikethrough	Terminals and fonts with complete style support
`standard`	Bold, italic, dim	Normal capable terminals
`minimal`	Bold, dim	Fonts without a true italic face
`none`	No font decoration	Color-only compatibility mode

NO_COLOR makes auto resolve to none. When terminfo is available, aibox checks italic and dim capabilities; an inconclusive probe assumes standard.

Unsupported attributes degrade to another channel: italic becomes dim, underline becomes bold, and strikethrough becomes dim. Bold is retained. Mono and high-contrast variants require at least the standard typography channel; max requires explicit emphasis = "full" because several semantic roles intentionally share a color.

Override individual semantic roles when a project needs a stronger cue:

toml

[customization.emphasis_overrides]
code_comment = "italic dim"
status_error = "bold underline"

Keys are semantic roles rather than tool-specific settings. Values may contain bold, italic, dim, underline, and strikethrough; aibox validates them, clamps them to the selected level, and degrades unsupported attributes per tool. An explicit emphasis = "none" still disables overrides.

Families and variants#

Set the value in the Variant column with variant = "…". Leave it unset for the default shown first.

Single-mode families reject an incompatible explicit mode, and every family rejects unknown or mode-incompatible variants with a message listing its available choices.

Family	Dark	Light	Variants
`andromeeda`	default	—	—
`aurora-x`	default	—	—
`ayu`	default, mirage	default	`mirage`
`catppuccin`	mocha, macchiato, frappe	latte	`macchiato`, `frappe`
`contrast`	high, max	high, max	`max`
`contrast-mono`	high, max	high, max	`max`
`dracula`	default, soft	—	`soft`
`everforest`	default	default	—
`github`	default, dimmed, high contrast	default, high contrast	`dimmed`, `high-contrast-dark`, `high-contrast-light`
`gruvbox`	default	default	—
`houston`	default	—	—
`kanagawa`	wave, dragon	lotus	`dragon`
`laserwave`	default	—	—
`material`	default, ocean, palenight, darker	lighter	`ocean`, `palenight`, `darker`
`min`	default	default	—
`mono`	default	default	—
`monokai`	default	—	—
`moonlight`	default	—	—
`night-owl`	default	default	—
`nord`	default	—	—
`one-dark`	pro	one light	—
`plastic`	default	—	—
`poimandres`	default	—	—
`projectious`	navy, deep, high contrast	default, high contrast	`deep`, `high-contrast-dark`, `high-contrast-light`
`red`	default	—	—
`rose-pine`	default, moon	dawn	`moon`
`slack`	default	ochin	`ochin`
`snazzy`	—	default	—
`solarized`	default	default	—
`synthwave-84`	default	—	—
`tokyo-night`	default, storm	day	`storm`
`vesper`	default	—	—
`vitesse`	default, black	default	`black`
`vscode`	Dark+	Light+	—

Accessibility families#

mono is a practical grayscale theme with a 4.5:1 text floor. contrast keeps distinct hues while raising every text role to at least 7:1 in high and 12:1 in max. contrast-mono combines those floors with grayscale and therefore depends most strongly on font decoration.

Contrast mono light max terminal example

Projectious#

Projectious is now a five-variant brand family. Navy is the default dark page, deep preserves the older code-panel depth, and both modes have high-contrast alternatives. Selection colors use a stronger midnight step so short selected ranges remain visible.

Semantic colors#

Every concrete variant authors or derives the following roles:

Base text: background, foreground, comments/metadata, accent, green, red, yellow, orange, cyan, and magenta.
Chrome: surface, active and inactive borders, active-tab ink, inactive-pane foreground/background, cursor and cursor text.
Interaction: selection foreground/background and search states.
Diffs: add, delete, change, word-level emphasis, headers, and hunks.
Syntax: plain text, comments, operators, keywords, types, functions, strings, numbers, decorators/macros, invalid, and deprecated code.
Status and Git: success, information, warning, error, disabled, modified, staged, untracked, ignored, and conflicted.

The shipped audit enforces a 7:1 floor for normal foreground text, 4.5:1 for colored text roles, 3:1 for non-text borders, and a visible surface/selection step.

Governed tools#

Surface	Generated configuration
tmux and PowerKit	Pane borders, active/inactive tabs and titles, status surfaces and states
Vim	Complete generated syntax/UI colorscheme, selection, search, diff, and decorations
Yazi	Manager, tabs, modes, status, pickers, Git states, and file types
Starship	Prompt palette and supported style attributes
LazyGit	Borders, search, state colors, and supported emphasis
bat and delta	Shared generated TextMate syntax theme plus audited diff backgrounds
fzf	Selection, prompts, matches, borders, disabled state, and attributes
eza	File types, Git states, metadata, and ANSI attributes
less and man	Heading, option, search, and status capabilities
lnav	Generated native theme definition for text, selection, status, warnings, and errors
OpenCode	Exact generated JSON palette for UI, Markdown, diffs, and syntax
Codex	Exact generated TextMate palette at `.codex/themes/aibox.tmTheme`; `tui.theme = "aibox"` selects it
Claude Code	Built-in dark/light modes; mono and contrast families use the ANSI modes
Gemini CLI	Closest supported built-in Gemini theme
Aider	Light/dark mode plus the closest supported Pygments code theme
Tau, Hermes, Copilot, Continue, Cursor	Terminal/tmux inheritance; these harnesses currently have no aibox-generated native palette

Generated files live below .aibox-home/ and are refreshed by aibox apply or the theme-switch command. Running TUI processes may need a restart.

Switch without rebuilding#

bash

aibox set theme.name projectious
aibox set theme.mode dark
aibox apply

To recreate the checked-in gallery after changing audited data:

bash

node scripts/capture-theme-variants.mjs