akari-theme 1.16.2

A terminal color theme inspired by Japanese alleys and lanterns
Documentation

akari-theme

A terminal color theme inspired by Japanese alleys lit by round lanterns.

Akari (灯) means light in Japanese. This theme is not about darkness, rain, or neon — it is about warm light, quiet streets, and the presence of life. Akari provides two palettes:

  • Akari Night — lanterns are the primary light source
  • Akari Dawn — the same alley, as the night fades into morning

Akari Night vs. Akari Dawn

Concept

Akari is inspired by a familiar Japanese scene:

  • Narrow residential alleys
  • Soft, round lanterns glowing above
  • Wood, stone, plants, and warm shadows
  • A night that feels alive, not silent

The goal is to translate this atmosphere into a terminal experience that feels calm, warm, and readable for long sessions.

Color Philosophy

  • Light is singular — Only one warm color (lantern orange) serves as the primary accent
  • Blue is air, not light — Blue represents the night sky, not a light source
  • Purple stays quiet — Muted purple for distance, never neon
  • Green is life — Represents plants and human presence
  • Black is gray — True black doesn't exist in a lit alley; use warm grays instead

Supported Tools

Tool Category Installation
Ghostty Terminal Emulator Copy theme to ~/.config/ghostty/themes/
Alacritty Terminal Emulator Import theme in alacritty.toml
Helix Editor Copy theme to ~/.config/helix/themes/
Neovim Editor Install via plugin manager
Visual Studio Code Editor Install from Marketplace or Open VSX
Starship Prompt Add palette to ~/.config/starship.toml
tmux Terminal Multiplexer Source config in .tmux.conf
Zellij Terminal Multiplexer Copy theme to ~/.config/zellij/themes/
macOS Terminal Terminal Emulator Double-click to import profile
zsh-syntax-highlighting Shell Source in .zshrc
fzf CLI Source in .bashrc or .zshrc
bat CLI Copy theme to $(bat --config-dir)/themes/
delta CLI Include gitconfig in ~/.gitconfig
Lazygit CLI Copy theme to ~/.config/lazygit/themes/
gh-dash CLI Copy theme to ~/.config/gh-dash/config.yml
Chrome Browser Load unpacked extension
Slack App Import theme string in Preferences

Nix (Home Manager)

Akari theme is available as a Home Manager module via Nix flakes.

Installation

Add akari-theme as a flake input and import the Home Manager module:

{
  inputs = {
    nixpkgs.url = "github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixos-unstable";
    home-manager.url = "github:nix-community/home-manager";
    akari-theme.url = "github:cappyzawa/akari-theme";
  };

  outputs = { nixpkgs, home-manager, akari-theme, ... }: {
    homeConfigurations."your-username" = home-manager.lib.homeManagerConfiguration {
      pkgs = nixpkgs.legacyPackages.x86_64-linux;
      modules = [
        akari-theme.homeModules.akari
        # your other modules...
      ];
    };
  };
}

Configuration

{
  # Global settings (applies to all supported tools)
  akari = {
    enable = true;     # default: true
    variant = "night"; # "night" or "dawn", default: "night"
  };

  # Per-tool overrides (optional)
  akari.ghostty.variant = "dawn";  # Use dawn for Ghostty only
  akari.helix.enable = false;      # Disable Akari for Helix
}

Supported Tools

The Home Manager module supports: alacritty, bat, delta, fzf, gh-dash, ghostty, helix, lazygit, starship, tmux, zellij, zsh

Each tool inherits the global akari.enable and akari.variant settings by default, but can be individually overridden.

Palette

Color definitions are the single source of truth in TOML format:

Crate Usage

Use akari-theme as a library to access palette colors in your Rust projects:

# Palette only (minimal dependencies: serde, toml, thiserror)
akari-theme = "1.9"

# With generator functionality
akari-theme = { version = "1.9", features = ["generator"] }

use akari_theme::{Palette, Rgb};

let night = Palette::night();
let bg: Rgb = night.base.background.parse().unwrap();
let color = bg.to_array();  // [f32; 3] for wgpu