Alacritty Colors

Advanced Alacritty theme manager with generation, preview, and seamless management capabilities

A powerful command-line tool for managing Alacritty terminal themes with automatic downloads, custom theme generation, and safe configuration management.

Features

• Theme Management - Apply, preview, and switch between hundreds of themes
• Random Themes - Instantly apply random themes for variety
• Theme Generation - Create custom themes with 12+ color schemes
• Auto-Download - Automatically download official Alacritty themes
• Search & Preview - Find themes by name and preview before applying
• Backup & Restore - Safe configuration management with automatic backups
• Cross-Platform - Works on macOS, Linux, and Windows
• Fast & Safe - Preserves your personal Alacritty settings
• User Friendly interactive terminal interface - Theme creation made easy!

Quick Start

Installation

**Using Go (recommanded) **

go install github.com/vitruves/alacritty-colors/cmd/alacritty-colors@latest

From Source:

git clone https://github.com/vitruves/alacritty-colors.git
cd alacritty-colors
make build && make install

First Time Setup

# Initialize configuration and download themes
alacritty-colors init

# List available themes
alacritty-colors list

# Apply your first theme
alacritty-colors apply dracula

Usage

Basic Commands

# Theme Management
alacritty-colors list                    # List all themes
alacritty-colors apply <theme>           # Apply a specific theme
alacritty-colors random                  # Apply random theme
alacritty-colors current                 # Show current theme

# Search and Preview
alacritty-colors search nord             # Search themes
alacritty-colors preview dracula         # Preview theme colors

# Theme Generation
alacritty-colors generate --scheme random
alacritty-colors generate --scheme pastel --name "my-theme"

# Interactive theme editor
alacritty-colors interactive

# Backup Management
alacritty-colors backup                  # Create backup
alacritty-colors restore                 # Restore from backup

# Updates
alacritty-colors update                  # Update theme database

Theme Generation Schemes

Generate custom themes with various color palettes:

Scheme	Description	Best For
random	Completely random colors	Experimentation
pastel	Soft, muted tones	Extended coding sessions
neon	Bright, vibrant colors	High contrast, retro aesthetics
mono	Monochromatic grayscale	Minimalist setups
warm	Reds, oranges, yellows	Cozy, comfortable environments
cool	Blues, greens, purples	Clean, professional look
nature	Earth tones, forest colors	Natural, organic feel
cyberpunk	Neon greens, magentas	Futuristic, hacker aesthetic
dracula	Dracula-inspired variants	Popular dark theme variations
nord	Nord-inspired cool tones	Scandinavian minimalism
solarized	Solarized variations	Scientific color precision
gruvbox	Gruvbox retro variants	Warm retro computing feel

Command Examples

# Apply popular themes
alacritty-colors apply dracula
alacritty-colors apply nord
alacritty-colors apply gruvbox-dark

# Generate custom themes
alacritty-colors generate --scheme cyberpunk --name "my-cyberpunk"
alacritty-colors generate --scheme warm --name "sunset-terminal"

# Search for specific themes
alacritty-colors search dark
alacritty-colors search solarized

# Preview before applying
alacritty-colors preview nord
# Shows color palette and prompts to apply

# Different output formats
alacritty-colors list --format grid
alacritty-colors list --format json
alacritty-colors list --format list

Configuration

Alacritty Colors automatically detects your configuration location:

Default Locations:

• macOS/Linux: ~/.config/alacritty/
• Windows: %APPDATA%/alacritty/

Directory Structure:

~/.config/alacritty/
├── alacritty.toml           # Main config (with import line)
├── themes/
│   ├── current.toml         # Currently applied theme
│   ├── dracula.toml         # Downloaded/generated themes
│   ├── nord.toml
│   └── my-custom.toml
├── backups/                 # Automatic backups
│   ├── alacritty_2024-01-15_10-30-45.toml
│   └── alacritty_2024-01-16_14-22-10.toml
└── alacritty-colors.json    # Tool configuration

Custom Paths:

alacritty-colors --config /path/to/alacritty.toml \
                 --themes-dir /path/to/themes \
                 apply dracula

How It Works

Alacritty Colors uses a simple and safe approach:

1. Import Line: Adds import = ["themes/current.toml"] to your main config
2. Theme Directory: Stores all themes in a themes/ subdirectory
3. Current Theme: Copies selected theme to themes/current.toml
4. Preservation: Your personal settings remain untouched in the main config

Benefits:

• Your personal settings are never modified
• Easy to disable (just remove the import line)
• Themes are portable and shareable
• No complex configuration file parsing required
• Clean separation between themes and personal config

Theme Preview

When previewing themes, you'll see:

• Color Palette: Visual representation of all theme colors
• Theme Information: Author, description, and metadata when available
• Interactive Apply: Option to apply the theme immediately

Example preview output:

$ alacritty-colors preview nord

Theme Preview: Nord
Description: An arctic, north-bluish clean and elegant color palette
Author: Arctic Ice Studio

Primary Colors:
  background    #2e3440
  foreground    #d8dee9

Normal Colors:
  black         #3b4252
  red           #bf616a
  green         #a3be8c
  yellow        #ebcb8b
  blue          #81a1c1
  magenta       #b48ead
  cyan          #88c0d0
  white         #e5e9f0

Bright Colors:
  black         #4c566a
  red           #bf616a
  green         #a3be8c
  ...

Apply this theme? [y/N]:

Advanced Usage

Batch Operations

# Apply random themes from a specific set
alacritty-colors search dark | grep -v "^Search" | head -5 | while read theme; do
    echo "Trying: $theme"
    alacritty-colors apply "$theme"
    sleep 2
done

# Generate multiple themed variants
for scheme in warm cool nature cyberpunk; do
    alacritty-colors generate --scheme "$scheme" --name "auto-$scheme"
done

Configuration Management

# Create named backup
alacritty-colors backup
cp ~/.config/alacritty/backups/alacritty_*.toml my-config-backup.toml

# Restore specific configuration
alacritty-colors restore my-config-backup.toml

# Reset to default theme
echo '# Default theme' > ~/.config/alacritty/themes/current.toml

Integration with Other Tools

# Use with system theme switching
if [ "$(uname)" = "Darwin" ]; then
    if defaults read -g AppleInterfaceStyle 2>/dev/null | grep -q Dark; then
        alacritty-colors apply dracula
    else
        alacritty-colors apply solarized-light
    fi
fi

# Random theme on new shell
if [ "$RANDOM_THEME" = "1" ]; then
    alacritty-colors random
fi

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Here's how to get started:

1. Fork the repository on GitHub
2. Clone your fork locally
3. Create a feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
4. Make your changes with tests
5. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add amazing feature')
6. Push to your branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)
7. Open a Pull Request

Troubleshooting

Common Issues

Themes not applying properly:

# Reinitialize configuration
alacritty-colors init

# Check current theme status
alacritty-colors current

# Verify import line exists in config
grep -n "import.*themes/current.toml" ~/.config/alacritty/alacritty.toml

Permission errors:

# Fix directory permissions
chmod 755 ~/.config/alacritty/
chmod 644 ~/.config/alacritty/alacritty.toml

# Ensure themes directory is writable
chmod 755 ~/.config/alacritty/themes/

Missing themes after update:

# Re-download theme database
alacritty-colors update

# Check themes directory
ls -la ~/.config/alacritty/themes/

Configuration backup and restore:

# List available backups
alacritty-colors restore

# Restore from specific backup
alacritty-colors restore alacritty_2024-01-15_10-30-45.toml

# Manual backup
cp ~/.config/alacritty/alacritty.toml ~/alacritty-backup.toml

Getting Help

If you encounter issues:

1. Check this troubleshooting section
2. Look at existing GitHub Issues
3. Create a new issue with:
   • Your operating system and version
   • Alacritty version (alacritty --version)
   • Steps to reproduce the problem
   • Expected vs actual behavior

Performance

Alacritty Colors is designed for speed:

• Fast theme switching: Themes apply instantly by copying files
• Minimal overhead: No complex parsing or processing during application
• Efficient downloads: Themes are downloaded once and cached locally
• Small footprint: Written in Go for fast startup and low memory usage

Typical performance on modern systems:

• Theme application: < 100ms
• Theme listing: < 50ms
• Theme generation: < 200ms
• Initial setup: < 5 seconds (including downloads)

License

MIT License - see LICENSE file for complete details.

Acknowledgments

This project builds upon the excellent work of:

• Alacritty - The fast, cross-platform, OpenGL terminal emulator
• Alacritty Themes - Official community theme collection
• Color Theory Research - HSL color space implementation for harmonious theme generation
• Go Community - For excellent tooling and libraries

Related Projects

• Alacritty - The terminal emulator itself
• Alacritty Themes - Official theme repository
• Base16 - Color scheme framework
• Pywal - System-wide color scheme generation

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Made for terminal enthusiasts.