[@tip] dark/light themes are broken

[ahmedelgabri]

Issue Description

I have this in my config to set up dark/light themes theme = dark:mine,light:Neobones Light the dark theme is custom one I have in ~/.config/ghostty/themes/mine. This all was working fine until I updated today. It only loads the light theme. But I can see my theme when I run ghostty +list-themes it also works if I set the theme = mine but not when I add the dark/light variants.

Expected Behavior

To correctly load the correct theme depending on the appearance settings of macOS.

Actual Behavior

Ghostty is loading only the light theme.

Reproduction Steps

• Set theme to theme = dark:0x96f,light:Neobones Light
• Restart ghostty
• You will get the light theme

Ghostty Logs

Filtering the log data using "subsystem == "com.mitchellh.ghostty""
Timestamp                       Thread     Type        Activity             PID    TTL
2025-11-28 11:21:28.905036+0100 0x1966f9   Info        0x0                  93672  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:default] ghostty version=1.3.0-main+199119967
2025-11-28 11:21:28.905560+0100 0x1966f9   Info        0x0                  93672  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:default] ghostty build optimize=ReleaseFast
2025-11-28 11:21:28.905580+0100 0x1966f9   Info        0x0                  93672  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:default] runtime=.none
2025-11-28 11:21:28.905594+0100 0x1966f9   Info        0x0                  93672  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:default] font_backend=.coretext
2025-11-28 11:21:28.905606+0100 0x1966f9   Info        0x0                  93672  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:default] renderer=renderer.generic.Renderer(renderer.Metal)
2025-11-28 11:21:28.905622+0100 0x1966f9   Info        0x0                  93672  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:default] libxev default backend=kqueue
2025-11-28 11:21:28.908479+0100 0x1966f9   Info        0x0                  93672  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:os_locale] detected system locale=en_NL.UTF-8
2025-11-28 11:21:28.908547+0100 0x1966f9   Info        0x0                  93672  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:os_locale] setlocale after unset lang result=C
2025-11-28 11:21:28.908560+0100 0x1966f9   Error       0x0                  93672  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:os_locale] setlocale failed with LANG and system default. Falling back to en_US.UTF-8
2025-11-28 11:21:28.908640+0100 0x1966f9   Info        0x0                  93672  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:os_locale] setlocale default result=en_US.UTF-8
2025-11-28 11:21:28.909814+0100 0x196700   Info        0x0                  93672  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:sentry] sentry envelope does not contain crash, discarding
2025-11-28 11:21:28.955914+0100 0x1966f9   Info        0x0                  93672  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:default] reading configuration file path=/Users/ahmedelgabri/.config/ghostty/config
2025-11-28 11:21:28.956484+0100 0x1966f9   Info        0x0                  93672  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:default] reading configuration file path=/Users/ahmedelgabri/.config/ghostty/config.local
2025-11-28 11:21:28.956643+0100 0x1966f9   Info        0x0                  93672  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:config] default shell src=passwd value=/run/current-system/sw/bin/zsh
2025-11-28 11:21:28.956658+0100 0x1966f9   Info        0x0                  93672  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:config] default working directory src=passwd value=/Users/ahmedelgabri
2025-11-28 11:21:28.984162+0100 0x1966f9   Debug       0x0                  93672  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:AppDelegate] application will restore window state
2025-11-28 11:21:28.988926+0100 0x1966f9   Info        0x0                  93672  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:ghostty] known but unimplemented action action=38
2025-11-28 11:21:28.996102+0100 0x1966f9   Info        0x0                  93672  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:font_shared_grid_set] font regular: PragmataPro Liga Regular
2025-11-28 11:21:28.996865+0100 0x1966f9   Info        0x0                  93672  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:font_shared_grid_set] font bold: PragmataPro Liga Bold
2025-11-28 11:21:28.997513+0100 0x1966f9   Info        0x0                  93672  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:font_shared_grid_set] font italic: PragmataPro Liga Italic
2025-11-28 11:21:28.998108+0100 0x1966f9   Info        0x0                  93672  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:font_shared_grid_set] font bold_italic: PragmataPro Liga Bold Italic
2025-11-28 11:21:29.009948+0100 0x1966f9   Info        0x0                  93672  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:io_exec] found Ghostty resources dir: /Applications/Ghostty.app/Contents/Resources/ghostty
2025-11-28 11:21:29.009986+0100 0x1966f9   Info        0x0                  93672  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:io_exec] shell integration automatically injected shell=.zsh
2025-11-28 11:21:29.010100+0100 0x1966f9   Info        0x0                  93672  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:ghostty] known but unimplemented action action=20
2025-11-28 11:21:29.011165+0100 0x19671c   Info        0x0                  93672  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:io_exec] started subcommand path=/usr/bin/login pid=93673
2025-11-28 11:21:29.011417+0100 0x1966f9   Info        0x0                  93672  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:ghostty] config reload notification
2025-11-28 11:21:29.011743+0100 0x1966f9   Info        0x0                  93672  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:config] default shell src=passwd value=/run/current-system/sw/bin/zsh
2025-11-28 11:21:29.011758+0100 0x1966f9   Info        0x0                  93672  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:config] default working directory src=passwd value=/Users/ahmedelgabri
2025-11-28 11:21:29.012080+0100 0x1966f9   Info        0x0                  93672  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:ghostty] config change notification
2025-11-28 11:21:29.042990+0100 0x1966f9   Info        0x0                  93672  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:ghostty] config reload notification
2025-11-28 11:21:29.043232+0100 0x1966f9   Info        0x0                  93672  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:ghostty] config change notification
2025-11-28 11:21:29.072108+0100 0x1966f9   Info        0x0                  93672  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:ghostty] config reload notification
2025-11-28 11:21:29.072348+0100 0x1966f9   Info        0x0                  93672  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:ghostty] config change notification
2025-11-28 11:21:29.072767+0100 0x1966f9   Info        0x0                  93672  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:config] default shell src=passwd value=/run/current-system/sw/bin/zsh
2025-11-28 11:21:29.072778+0100 0x1966f9   Info        0x0                  93672  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:config] default working directory src=passwd value=/Users/ahmedelgabri
2025-11-28 11:21:29.072814+0100 0x1966f9   Info        0x0                  93672  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:ghostty] config change notification
2025-11-28 11:21:29.162428+0100 0x19671b   Info        0x0                  93672  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:font_codepoint_resolver] found codepoint 0x9F8 in fallback face=Arial Unicode MS
2025-11-28 11:21:31.382725+0100 0x1966f9   Debug       0x0                  93672  0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:AppDelegate] application will save window state

### Ghostty Version

```text
Ghostty 1.3.0-main+199119967

Version
  - version: 1.3.0-main+199119967
  - channel: tip
Build Config
  - Zig version   : 0.15.2
  - build mode    : .ReleaseFast
  - app runtime   : .none
  - font engine   : .coretext
  - renderer      : renderer.generic.Renderer(renderer.Metal)
  - libxev        : kqueue

OS Version Information

macOS Sequoia 15.6.1

(Linux only) Display Server

None

(Linux only) Desktop Environment/Window Manager

No response

Minimal Ghostty Configuration

It can be any dark and light variants


theme = dark:0x96f,light:Neobones Light

### Additional Relevant Configuration

_No response_

### I acknowledge that:

- [X] I have reviewed the FAQ and confirm that my issue is NOT among them.
- [X] I have searched the Ghostty repository (both open and closed Discussions and Issues) and confirm this is not a duplicate of an existing issue or discussion.
- [X] I have checked the "Preview" tab on all text fields to ensure that everything looks right, and have wrapped all configuration and code in code blocks with a group of three backticks (` ``` `) on separate lines.

[akrabat]

This explains why Ghostty isn't swapping to my dark theme at night any more.

[cgrs]

Reproduced the bug in macOS Sonoma 14.8.2 as well:

ghostty.mp4

[cgrs]

Fixed in tip(dd4493b) in this commit to be precise.

On another note (but that should probably go on another discussion thread 😅), now ghostty +version is borked at tip; it shows the stable version (even an older one 🤔):

$ ghostty +version
Ghostty 1.3.0

Version
  - version: 1.3.0
  - channel: stable
Build Config
  - Zig version   : 0.15.2
  - build mode    : .ReleaseFast
  - app runtime   : .none
  - font engine   : .coretext
  - renderer      : renderer.generic.Renderer(renderer.Metal)
  - libxev        : kqueue

[ahmedelgabri]

Yes it's fixed now for me too.

[jcollie]

@zzzealed open a new discussion. don't resurrect long closed discussions.