novusedge/glowup/glowup-pack

Make a glowup pack

A pack is one JSON file that sets a whole look: palette, transcript row style, spinner and shimmer. Every field and allowed value is in reference.md. Use only what it lists. glowup skips unknown keys and values with a notice and refuses bad values.

Steps

1. Source. A mood or description, a palette, an image the user shows, or a terminal color scheme. If the request has none, ask for one in a single question. Otherwise do not ask.
2. Terminal scheme file (Ghostty or base16): run /glowup import <file> first. It saves a pack with a palette and bg. Then edit that file for rows, spinner and contrast. Other formats, an image or a description: read the colors yourself and write the pack.
3. Name. Lowercase letters, digits and dashes, 1 to 40 characters, starting with a letter or digit, not classic, crt, cozy or arcade. Check ~/.claude/glowup/packs so you do not overwrite a pack the user made.
4. Write ~/.claude/glowup/packs/<name>.json ($CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR/glowup/packs/ if set). Start the palette from a built-in theme with colors.theme and set only the colors that differ. Set bg to the user's terminal background if known. Pick rows, spinner and shimmer to fit the mood.
5. Check contrast and fix colors before you save. See below.
6. Apply. Tell the user to run /glowup pack <name>. If it prints errors, fix the file from the message and ask them to run it again. To match the terminal background in Konsole they can run /glowup export konsole.

For glyphs, hearts and spinner words, set colors.glyphs, colors.hearts and colors.words in the pack. A theme file (see Theme file in reference.md) is only for a reusable theme.

Change an existing pack or theme

Built-in packs (classic, crt, cozy, arcade) and built-in themes live in glowup's code, so there is no file to edit. Do not write a file with a built-in's name: glowup ignores it.

1. Small color tweak ("make the accent greener", "dimmer text"): do not write a file. Tell the user to run /glowup color <role> <#hex>. It is saved, sits on top of any pack or theme, and survives /glowup pack <name>. /glowup color list shows the roles, /glowup color reset [role] undoes it. Use a file when the change is several colors, or anything that is not a color.
2. Change a built-in: write a new user pack that extends it and sets only the differences, for example { "format": 1, "name": "arcade-soft", "extends": "arcade", "colors": { "palette": { "accent": "#d46fb0" } } }. palette, extras, rowFlags, glyphs and pet merge key by key; every other key you set replaces the parent's. The user needs /glowup pack arcade-soft to apply it. To start from the look they have now, with their overrides, run /glowup pack save <name>: it writes a self-contained file you can edit.
3. Change one of their packs: read ~/.claude/glowup/packs/<name>.json, edit it in place, keep every key you were not asked to change, and tell them to run /glowup pack <name> again.
4. What the pack can change: colors.palette, bg, border, borderColor, gradient, rows, extras, rowFlags (labels, markers, xp), glyphs, hearts, words, pet (Clawd's body, light, shade), and motion.spinner, shimmer, color. rowFlags.labels: false drops the you and claude labels; markers swaps the side bar for ▶ (accent) and ◆ (read) in cards; xp adds a +N XP tag above replies in cards. A spinner alone can also be changed with /glowup spinner <id>.
5. Glyphs and spinner words go in the pack: colors.glyphs, colors.hearts, colors.words, and colors.pet for Clawd's colors. Write a theme file ~/.claude/glowup/themes/<name>.json ("extends": "<built-in or their theme>", only the glyphs or spinner.words you change) only when the user wants a reusable theme, and then set colors.theme to its name in the pack. Each glyph is one character, one cell wide.
6. Check contrast again for any palette color you changed, then have the user apply it.

Status line fields

The status line fields are a personal setting, not part of a pack. They are an ordered list of ids, and the built-in default is activity ctx effort 5h week. A field with no data is left out.

When the person describes what they want on the line, tell them to run /glowup statusline fields <ids> with the ids they describe, in the order they name them. "Show my usage limits and branch" becomes /glowup statusline fields activity 5h week branch. /glowup statusline fields default goes back to the default. An unknown id refuses the whole command and lists the valid ids. To put fields on a second line, tell them to add a / where it should start: "usage on its own line" becomes /glowup statusline fields activity ctx / 5h week. Only one / is allowed.

glowup draws the whole line only after /glowup statusline on. Without it, the fields show in the entry under the prompt while Claude works.

Contrast

Check against bg, and against panel when rows is cards.

• text at least 4.5:1. dim at least 4.5:1. faint at least 3:1.
• accent, read, edit, shell, agent, fail at least 3:1 each, and no two of them close in hue and lightness. pass may equal shell.
• text at least 4.5:1 on addBg, delBg and sel.

Relative luminance of #rrggbb: for each channel c in 0 to 255, s = c / 255, then lin = s <= 0.03928 ? s / 12.92 : ((s + 0.055) / 1.055) ^ 2.4. L = 0.2126 R + 0.7152 G + 0.0722 B. Contrast is (Llighter + 0.05) / (Ldarker + 0.05). Compute it with a short script, not by eye. If a color fails, move its lightness, keep its hue, and compute again.