Create a custom Qesh theme

Desktop theme

Open Configure. Replace the theme object with a palette below, save, and open a new window. No named theme selector is built into version 0.4.0; these are copyable examples.

Dark charcoal

1{
2  "theme": {
3    "background": "#0e0d11",
4    "surface": "#141318",
5    "foreground": "#d4d4d4",
6    "muted": "#a09ca8",
7    "border": "#45414e",
8    "primary": "#9cdcfe",
9    "error": "#f48771",
10    "selection": "#264f78"
11  }
12}

Warm graphite

1{
2  "theme": {
3    "background": "#151311",
4    "surface": "#211e1a",
5    "foreground": "#e8e1d7",
6    "muted": "#afa69a",
7    "border": "#514b43",
8    "primary": "#d8b47a",
9    "error": "#ff9b8f",
10    "selection": "#514638"
11  }
12}

Merge the theme object into your existing configuration if you want to retain other settings.

What the colors affect

Qesh uses a fixed VS Code-style 16-color ANSI palette. Programs can emit their own true-color output. Changing primary does not recolor every shell command or syntax token.

CLI theme

qh loads theme colors from the global configuration. To temporarily override them, use the legacy q-terminal launch path with the environment example below.

From your cloned repository, launch with a JSON environment variable:

1QENTRAH_THEME='{"background":"#151311","surface":"#211e1a","foreground":"#e8e1d7","primary":"#d8b47a","selection":"#514638"}' ./bin/q-terminal

Omitted colors keep their defaults. Invalid JSON or invalid color values are ignored by the CLI theme loader. Exit and relaunch the CLI to change its palette.

Check a palette

Before using a full desktop configuration, validate a saved file from the repository:

1node -e 'const fs=require("node:fs"); const config=require("./desktop/config.cjs"); config.validate(JSON.parse(fs.readFileSync(process.argv[1],"utf8"))); console.log("Configuration valid")' ./qesh.config.json

Expect Configuration valid. A validation error names the setting to correct. The loader merges omitted fields with defaults.