Themes 

Kimün ships with 21 built-in themes — all the classics — and lets you write your own as a small TOML file.

The fastest way to pick one is the live theme picker — Ctrl+G v t (or the CFG drawer's t): moving the selection restyles the whole app instantly, Enter persists, Esc reverts. Or set it in your config:

theme = "Nord"

Built-in Themes 

Family	Dark	Light
Gruvbox	Gruvbox Dark (default)	Gruvbox Light
Catppuccin	Catppuccin Mocha	Catppuccin Latte
Tokyo Night	Tokyo Night, Tokyo Night Storm	—
Solarized	Solarized Dark	Solarized Light
Dracula	Dracula	Alucard (Dracula's official light variant)
One	One Dark	One Light
Everforest	Everforest Dark	Everforest Light
Rosé Pine	Rosé Pine	Rosé Pine Dawn
Kanagawa	Kanagawa Wave	Kanagawa Lotus
Nord	Nord	—
Monokai	Monokai	—
ANSI	adapts to your terminal's 16-color palette — works light or dark

Color depth 

Themes adapt automatically to what your terminal supports: truecolor where available, quantized to 256 colors, or mapped onto the 16 ANSI slots on basic terminals (where every theme effectively becomes the ANSI theme, following your terminal's palette).

Creating a Custom Theme 

Theme File Location 

Place custom theme files in the themes/ subdirectory of your Kimün config directory:

• Linux / macOS: ~/.config/kimun/themes/
• Windows: %USERPROFILE%\kimun\themes\

Each file must have a .toml extension. The filename is not significant — the theme's display name comes from the name field inside the file.

Theme File Format 

A theme file is a TOML file with a name field and up to 27 color roles. Only name and the core roles you want to change are required — anything omitted derives from a sensible sibling (e.g. bg_hard/bg_soft derive from bg, focus_border from green, selection_fg from fg_bright), so a minimal theme can be just a handful of lines.

name = "My Theme"

# Backgrounds
bg            = "#1e1e2e"   # main/editor background
bg_hard       = "#11111b"   # modals and input fields (harder contrast)
bg_soft       = "#24243a"   # alternating rows, horizontal rules
bg_panel      = "#181825"   # drawer / panel background
selection_bg  = "#313244"   # selected row background

# Text
fg            = "#cdd6f4"   # primary text
fg_bright     = "#f5f7ff"   # titles, headings
fg_secondary  = "#a6adc8"   # filenames, metadata, hints
gray          = "#6c7086"   # placeholders, separators, disabled
selection_fg  = "#f5f7ff"   # text on selected rows

# Chrome
border_dim    = "#45475a"   # unfocused borders
focus_border  = "#a6e3a1"   # focused borders (the green frame)
accent        = "#89b4fa"   # title bars, active markers
cursor        = "#f5e0dc"   # block cursor in text fields

# Accent palette (query highlighting, status, markdown)
red           = "#f38ba8"   # errors, query negation
green         = "#a6e3a1"   # success, quoted query terms
yellow        = "#f9e2af"   # warnings, field keys, keycaps
blue          = "#89b4fa"   # wikilink targets
purple        = "#cba6f7"   # numbers and dates
aqua          = "#94e2d5"   # tags, group labels
orange        = "#fab387"   # operators, strong accents

# Semantic
color_directory    = "#89dceb"  # directory rows in the file list
color_journal_date = "#94e2d5"  # journal date annotations
color_search_match = "#a6e3a1"  # highlighted search matches
color_tag          = "#fab387"  # #hashtag spans in the editor
blockquote_bar     = "#585b70"  # the ▏ bar replacing > markers
code_bg            = "#181825"  # fenced/indented code-block background

Color Formats 

Colors can be specified in the following formats:

Format	Example	Notes
6-digit hex	"#1e1e2e"
3-digit hex (shorthand)	"#abc"	Expands to #aabbcc
RGB function	"rgb(30, 30, 46)"
ANSI index	"ansi:4"	0-255
Terminal default	"reset"	Uses the terminal's default fg or bg

Activating a Custom Theme 

Once the file is saved, start (or restart) Kimün. Your theme appears in the theme picker (Ctrl+G v t) alongside the built-in ones. You can also set it directly in config.toml:

theme = "My Theme"

The name must match the name field in your .toml file exactly.

Overriding the Default Theme 

If you save a file named default.toml in the themes directory, it will be loaded as an additional theme option. It does not replace the built-in default — to make it the active theme, set it in [global] as shown above.

Example: Ayu Dark Theme (minimal) 

Derivation fills everything not listed:

name = "Ayu Dark"

bg           = "#0a0e14"
bg_panel     = "#0d1017"
selection_bg = "#273747"
fg           = "#b3b1ad"
fg_secondary = "#6c7380"
gray         = "#4d5566"
border_dim   = "#11151c"
accent       = "#e6b450"

red    = "#d95757"
green  = "#7fd962"
yellow = "#e6b450"
blue   = "#39bae6"
purple = "#d2a6ff"
aqua   = "#95e6cb"
orange = "#ff8f40"

Save this as ~/.config/kimun/themes/ayu-dark.toml and set theme = "Ayu Dark" in your config.

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Made a theme you like? Themes are just TOML — easy to share. And if you're now in the mood to customize everything else too, head to Configuration.