# Create a custom QH theme

## Select or save a theme

Open Settings → Appearance. The theme dropdown offers Charcoal, Graphite, Midnight, and your saved palettes. Choose a theme to apply it immediately. The dropdown closes when you click outside or press Escape.

Choose Cyan, Blue, Green, Amber, Violet, or Rose for the accent, or open Custom for the color picker. Background, text, selection, and sidebar highlight also have color controls. Enter a name and choose Save current theme to reuse the full palette later. Changes show **Saved** after writing the configuration.

Workspace and tab label colors are separate: open their three-dot menu → Color. Default inherits the workspace color or theme accent. An individual tab can override that color.

## Edit a palette in JSONC

Run `qh config` and change `theme`. Every color uses #RRGGBB. A saved theme in `themes` needs all eight keys:

```jsonc
{
  "themes": {
    "My graphite": {
      "background": "#171717",
      "surface": "#232323",
      "foreground": "#e5e2dc",
      "muted": "#a8a29e",
      "border": "#45403b",
      "primary": "#e5c07b",
      "error": "#f48771",
      "selection": "#4b4235"
    }
  }
}
```

Saved palettes appear in Appearance. Terminal ANSI colors retain the VS Code Dark+ palette; individual programs control their own output colors. See [configuration](/docs/qh/configuration) for validation and live reload.