Theming

g styles everything through a single theme: not just colors, but also icons, box-drawing borders, layout density, and reusable component styles. Each theme owns all of these — colors, borders and spacing live together in the theme file — so switching theme reshapes the whole look. You only pick the theme in [ui]:

[ui]
theme = "dark"   # color palette + borders + spacing, all from the theme file

Borders and spacing are defined inside the theme, not in [ui]. For example each built-in ships its own combination:

Theme	border_style	density
dark / light / solarized-dark	sharp	normal
dracula	rounded	normal
nord	rounded	relaxed
gruvbox	heavy	normal
monochrome	ascii	compact

If you want to force one style regardless of the active theme, set the optional overrides in [ui] (commented out by default):

[ui]
# border_style = "rounded"   # override every theme's borders
# density = "compact"        # override every theme's spacing

Built-in themes

Pick any of these by name with theme = "<name>":

Name	Description
dark	Default. ANSI colors tuned for dark terminals.
light	Darker colors for light backgrounds.
dracula	Vivid colors on a dark background.
nord	Cool, muted arctic palette.
gruvbox	Warm retro palette (dark variant).
solarized-dark	Ethan Schoonover’s low-contrast classic.
monochrome	Grayscale only — minimal / e-ink terminals.

Pick a theme interactively — g config --themes opens a picker of every recognised theme (built-in and custom); the active one is tagged · current. Choosing one writes it to [ui] theme (your config comments are preserved) so the choice is remembered:

g config --themes        # arrow/j-k to move, Enter to select, Esc to cancel

When output is piped or --no-interactive is set, the same command just prints the list with the active theme marked.

Built-ins are editable files

The built-in themes are not hard-coded — they ship as TOML and are written into your themes directory on first run:

~/.config/g/themes/dark.toml
~/.config/g/themes/nord.toml
~/.config/g/themes/dracula.toml
…

Edit any of these in place to tweak a built-in — no recompile needed. Delete a file and it is restored from the copy embedded in the binary on the next run, so you can always get back to the original.

A complete theme, end to end

Here is the shipped nord theme in full — a real, working file you can copy and tweak. Note how colors, borders and spacing all live together:

# ~/.config/g/themes/nord.toml
name = "nord"

border_style = "rounded"
density      = "relaxed"  # roomy spacing for a calm, airy feel

[palette]
primary  = "#88c0d0"
success  = "#a3be8c"
warning  = "#ebcb8b"
danger   = "#bf616a"
muted    = "#4c566a"
text     = "#d8dee9"
accent   = "#b48ead"
divider  = "#4c566a"

cc_feat     = "#a3be8c"
cc_fix      = "#bf616a"
cc_docs     = "#81a1c1"
cc_refactor = "#b48ead"
cc_perf     = "#d08770"
cc_test     = "#88c0d0"
cc_chore    = "#4c566a"
cc_revert   = "#bf616a"

Switch to it and see it instantly:

g config --themes        # pick "nord" from the list
g status                 # rounded borders, airy spacing, arctic colors

Border styles

A theme’s border_style swaps every rule, table divider and tree connector in lock-step:

Value	Looks like
sharp	┌─┐ │ └─┘ (default)
rounded	╭─╮ │ ╰─╯
heavy	┏━┓ ┃ ┗━┛
double	╔═╗ ║ ╚═╝
ascii	+-+ | +-+ (also forces ASCII icons)

Density

A theme’s density controls indentation and the spacing between sections:

Value	Effect
compact	Single-space indent, no blank lines between sections.
normal	Balanced default.
relaxed	Wider indents and extra breathing room.

Build your own theme

A custom theme is a small TOML file. It extends a built-in palette and overrides only the roles you care about — anything you omit is inherited.

1. Create the file

Put it in the themes directory so you can reference it by name:

mkdir -p ~/.config/g/themes
$EDITOR ~/.config/g/themes/midnight.toml

# ~/.config/g/themes/midnight.toml
name = "Midnight"        # informational only
extends = "nord"         # start from a built-in theme (default: "dark")

# Borders and spacing are part of the theme. If omitted they are inherited
# from `extends`.
border_style = "rounded" # sharp | rounded | heavy | double | ascii
density = "relaxed"      # normal | compact | relaxed
ascii_icons = false      # force the ASCII icon set

[palette]
# Override only what you want; everything else comes from `extends`.
primary = "#89b4fa"      # hex (#RGB or #RRGGBB)
success = "green"        # ANSI color name
warning = "228"          # 256-color index (0–255)
danger  = "brightred"    # bright / light variants are supported
accent  = "#cba6f7"
muted   = "#6c7086"
text    = "#cdd6f4"

Color formats

Every palette value accepts:

• Hex — #RGB or #RRGGBB (true color), e.g. #ff8800
• 256-color index — 0–255, e.g. 228
• ANSI names — black, red, green, yellow, blue, magenta, cyan, gray/grey, darkgray, white, and the bright* / light* variants (e.g. brightcyan).

Palette roles

Key	Used for
primary	info icon, spinner, active branch
success	checkmarks, added lines, current branch
warning	warnings, commit hashes, staged changes
danger	errors, deleted lines, remote refs
muted	dates, dividers, graph lines, dim text
text	general body text
accent	section titles, tags, special refs
divider	slash fill in section headers
cc_feat, cc_fix, cc_docs, cc_refactor, cc_perf, cc_test, cc_chore, cc_revert	Conventional-Commit type prefixes

2. Load it

By name (resolved under ~/.config/g/themes/<name>.toml):

[ui]
theme = "midnight"

…or by an explicit path from anywhere:

[ui]
theme = "/Users/me/dotfiles/g/ocean.toml"

Verify it was picked up:

g config --themes      # should mark your theme as active
g status               # see it live

If a theme can’t be found or fails to parse, g prints a warning and falls back to dark, so a broken theme never blocks a command.

Related docs

• Configuration — the full config.toml reference
• Log & diff — where colors and borders show up most