recol

Switch your terminal, editor, and application color schemes from one command — no manual config editing. Pick from 600+ prebuilt schemes with instant fuzzy search and apply them across multiple supported targets.

• 600+ color schemes from iTerm2-Color-Schemes
• Targets support: Ghostty, Kitty, Alacritty, WezTerm, Neovim, Vim, Pi
• Neovim theme integration based on Nightfox.nvim
• Non-destructive — only color values are modified, nothing else in your config

• Ghostty: now reloads automatically via SIGUSR2 (should work on most systems); if not, use the manual shortcut (Ctrl + Shift + , on Linux or Cmd + Shift + , on macOS).
• Kitty 0.47.0+ automatically reloads config changes by default. Older versions, or configurations with auto reload disabled, require Ctrl + Shift + F5 (Ctrl + Cmd + , on macOS). See Kitty's auto reload documentation.
• Alacritty, WezTerm support hot configuration reload. Changes are applied immediately without restarting the terminal.

Neovim doesn't support hot theme reload — the config needs to be re-sourced after switching. The integration below handles this automatically after every recol run.

Implementation: recol.lua

Install:

curl -Ls https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nlkli/recol/main/recol.lua >> ~/.config/nvim/init.lua

• :Recol <args> — runs recol with the given arguments, then reloads your config
• :Recol -i / :RecolOpen — opens recol in a floating terminal window

git clone https://github.com/nlkli/recol
cd recol
cargo build --release
./target/release/recol --help

brew install nlkli/tap/recol

cargo install --git https://github.com/nlkli/recol --branch main --force

Build your own color schemes collection right into the binary:

./fetch.sh   # downloads themes into ./colorschemes
RECOL_BUILD_COLORSCHEMES_BIN=1 cargo build --release

Add your own themes to ./colorschemes, or exclude unwanted ones in build.rs.

recol lOnDoNsOhOnIgHt67       # fuzzy match - applies closest theme by name
recol -rd --contains Gruvbox  # random dark theme with "Gruvbox" in name
recol dracula --dark --show   # preview palette without applying
recol --list -l --json        # list light themes as JSON
recol terafox --target nvim   # apply theme for specific target
recol                         # print current theme name (add --show or --json for more)

# change a theme color via JSON and apply the modified theme
echo GruberDarker69 | recol -j | jq '.colors.fg[1] = "#ff0000"' | recol
recol --list | tail | recol -rdj | jq '.colors.bg[1] = "#000000"' | recol

echo "ubuntu\nVague" | recol -i # interactive mode with initial themes

# start interactive mode with your favourite themes
recol --list -dc "Catppuccin" >> favourites
cat favourites | recol -i

Adjust theme colors with --adjust "group.adjustment=value,...". Supports brightness, contrast, saturation, hue, exposure, gamma, temperature, tint, normalize and more. Apply to UI elements, specific colors, or the full ANSI palette using short group names (e.g. pal, bg, red).

recol --adjust help

In interactive mode you can change adjustments live and see the preview update instantly.

recol can derive a color scheme from any image/video frame. Pass a media file with --media and recol builds a theme automatically:

recol --media ~/Pictures/Sunset.png            # generate and apply a theme from an image
recol -m ~/Videos/X.gif --json                 # generate a theme and output it as JSON
recol -m ~/Photo/Tree.png -a t.s=9,bb.b=-12    # generate and apply with color adjust

Requirements: ffmpeg must be installed and available on PATH.

This feature requires no additional Cargo/Rust dependencies. recol simply invokes the ffmpeg binary already installed on the system and uses its palettegen functionality to extract colors.

recol ships with a limited set of built-in targets (Ghostty, Kitty, Alacritty, WezTerm, Neovim, Vim, Pi). You can extend it to apply themes to any application that lets you tweak its config file — window managers, browsers, file managers, text editors, and more.

Each target is a small module under src/targets/:

1. Locate the config file — add a Target arm in existing_default_config_path() (src/targets/mod.rs). Find the correct path(s), honouring XDG_CONFIG_HOME; return None if the target isn't configured.
2. Apply the theme non-destructively — implement apply_theme_to(path, theme) in a new src/targets/<name>.rs. Edit the config in place (replace or insert the color values), preserving everything else, and match an existing target's config format. Optionally implement set_font_on for font changes.
3. Register the target in src/targets/mod.rs:
   • mod <name>;
   • Add a variant to the Target enum
   • Add it to ALL_TARGETS
   • Add arms to Display (the shown name) and FromStr (the CLI value, e.g. vscode)
   • Add arms to Target::apply_theme_to and existing_default_config_path

// src/targets/mod.rs — example registration
mod vscode;
// ...
pub enum Target { /* ..., Vscode */ }
pub const ALL_TARGETS: [Target; 8] = [ /* ..., Target::Vscode */ ];
// Display, FromStr, apply_theme_to, existing_default_config_path — add one arm each

───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Language            Files       Lines    Blanks  Comments       Code Complexity
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Rust                   24       6,051       590       490      4,971        633
TOML                    2          49         6         0         43          0
License                 1          21         4         0         17          0
Markdown                1         226        54         0        172          0
Shell                   1          15         4         7          4          0
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Total                  29       6,362       658       497      5,207        633
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Estimated Cost to Develop (organic) $152,777
Estimated Schedule Effort (organic) 6.74 months
Estimated People Required (organic) 2.02
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Processed 217,355 bytes, 0.217 megabytes (SI)
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LICENSE