Themes

A theme sets the colors of rozi's interface and the ANSI palette that programs in panes use. This page covers choosing a built-in theme, following the host terminal's colors, and writing your own theme file.

Choose a built-in theme

Open Settings, choose Theme, and select a theme. rozi previews the highlighted theme as you move through the list. Selecting one writes [theme].name to config.toml.

You can also set it directly:

[theme]
name = "tokyo-night"

~/src/rozi — dev

[theme]
name = "rozi"

Programs in panes that use the 16 ANSI colors, as most do, follow the theme too.

Id	Label
rozi	Rozi, the default
lipan	Lipan
one-dark	One Dark
dracula	Dracula
nord	Nord
gruvbox-dark	Gruvbox Dark
gruvbox-light	Gruvbox Light
catppuccin-mocha	Catppuccin Mocha
catppuccin-frappe	Catppuccin Frappe
catppuccin-macchiato	Catppuccin Macchiato
catppuccin-latte	Catppuccin Latte
tokyo-night	Tokyo Night
tokyo-night-day	Tokyo Night Day
solarized-dark	Solarized Dark
solarized-light	Solarized Light
monokai	Monokai
rose-pine	Rose Pine
rose-pine-moon	Rose Pine Moon
rose-pine-dawn	Rose Pine Dawn
kanagawa	Kanagawa
everforest	Everforest
ayu-dark	Ayu Dark
ayu-mirage	Ayu Mirage
ayu-light	Ayu Light
nightfox	Nightfox
nordfox	Nordfox
night-owl	Night Owl
material-palenight	Material Palenight
oxocarbon	Oxocarbon
zenburn	Zenburn

Built-in theme ids are case-insensitive, and underscores and spaces count as hyphens. Common short forms such as onedark, tokyonight, gruvbox, catppuccin, and solarized also work.

ansi is a valid config value that uses the host terminal's ANSI colors. It is not shown in the picker.

An unknown theme name falls back to rozi with a warning.

Use the host terminal colors

Set name = "system" to build the theme from the host terminal's foreground, background, and ANSI colors. If the terminal does not answer rozi's color query, rozi warns and uses ansi for that run. system stays configured, and rozi tries again at the next launch.

To keep your chosen theme but use the host terminal's background behind panes, turn on Panes › Background › Follows terminal in Settings, or set:

[pane]
background_follows_terminal = true

rozi watches the host terminal's colors while it runs. When you change the host terminal's theme, the foreground, background, and all 16 ANSI colors update without restarting rozi.

The sidebar normally uses the theme's raised element color. To give it the same backdrop as the panes instead, turn on Bars › Sidebar › Background follows canvas in Settings, or set:

[sidebar]
background_follows_canvas = true

Create a custom theme

1. Create a TOML file in the themes directory inside your config directory: ~/.config/rozi/themes/ (or $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/rozi/themes/) on Linux and macOS, and %APPDATA%\rozi\themes\ on Windows. The filename without .toml is the theme id.

2. Pick a starting theme with extends, and override only what you want to change:

   # ~/.config/rozi/themes/my-nord.toml
   extends = "nord"
   
   [accent]
   fg = "#ff79c6"
   
   [status]
   success = "#50fa7b"
   error = "#ff5555"

3. Select my-nord in Settings › Theme, or set name = "my-nord" under [theme].

A custom file with the same id as a built-in theme, or named system, replaces it.

extends is optional; without it, the theme starts from lipan. It accepts every built-in theme except rozi, plus ansi. It does not accept system. Matching ignores case, hyphens, underscores, and spaces.

While a custom theme is active, rozi reloads it whenever the file changes. If the file has a parse error, rozi warns and uses lipan until you fix it.

Theme file reference

A custom theme lists only the fields it changes. Every omitted field keeps its value from extends.

Top-level fields

The style tables are primary, accent, selection, text_selection, focus, hover, border, and muted. Each accepts the style fields below.

primary is ordinary text. accent covers focus, active state, and highlights. Headers, directory names, and section titles also use the accent color.

The other top-level fields are:

Field	Shape
extends	preset id
focus_decoration	boolean
border_active	color
caret	shape, color
surface	panel, element, menu, backdrop
status	success, warning, error, info
file_icons	azure, blue, cyan, green, grey, orange, purple, red, yellow
git_status	modified, added, deleted, renamed, untracked, conflicted
diff	context, added, removed, empty, added_word, removed_word, added_marker, removed_marker, context_line_number, added_line_number, removed_line_number, context_separator_style, patch_header
document	heading_styles, code_inline, code_block, emphasis, strong, strikethrough, link, blockquote_bar, table_border, table_header, hr, list_item, list_enumeration, diagram_node_fill_style, diagram_node_border_style, diagram_node_label_style, diagram_edge_style, diagram_muted_style
syntax	comment, keyword, string, number, constant, function, builtin, type_name, variable, parameter, operator
input	focus style
text_area	focus style
document_view	focus style
hex_area	focus, cursor styles
terminal	focus style
scrollbar	track, thumb, thumb_focus colors
splitter	hover, active colors

heading_styles is an array of six style tables. Caret shape is block, bar, or underline.

Style fields

Every style table accepts:

• fg, bg, and underline_color
• bold, dim, italic, underline, reverse, and strikethrough
• dim_amount from 0.0 to 1.0
• tint = { color = "…", alpha = 0.0 }

fg, bg, and underline_color accept solid colors and colors with alpha. Palette fields such as status.error accept solid colors only.

Color values

Solid colors can be written as:

• hex, such as "#82aaff"
• ANSI names, such as "cyan" or "darkgray"
• indexed(0) through indexed(255)
• rgb(r,g,b) with channels from 0 to 255

Style color fields also accept "#RRGGBBAA" and rgba(r,g,b,a). Alpha is an integer from 0 to 255 or a decimal from 0.0 to 1.0.

Use the host background in one theme

Set surface.backdrop = "backdrop" to use the host terminal's background in this theme only:

extends = "nord"

[surface]
backdrop = "backdrop"

If the host background is not available, rozi uses the theme's panel color.

Terminal colors

When you change themes, rozi applies the new theme's terminal palette to existing panes as well as new ones. ansi and system pass the host terminal's palette through more directly. In a custom theme, the status, accent, and related palette colors also change the pane's ANSI colors and pane alerts.

Command output colors

When you run rozi's own commands inside a rozi pane, their output follows the theme of the client that shows the pane. This covers rozi --help, the tables printed by commands such as rozi list-panes, and the progress rows of rozi update and extension installs.

• Headings, spinners, and the filled part of a download meter use the accent. The terminal palette's accent is slightly lighter than the interface accent.
• The first column of a table uses a dimmer accent.
• Muted text and the success, warning, and error colors use the theme's own colors.

Clients with different themes each see the same output in their own colors, and output already on screen changes color when you switch themes.

Outside rozi, these commands use the default rozi palette, since the host terminal has its own theme. The message printed when you detach from a session uses your active theme's accent and muted colors. NO_COLOR and the other color switches turn styling off everywhere.

See Terminal features for clipboard, title, image, and scrollback behavior, which does not depend on the theme.