command-center/agent/managed-skills/noctalia-custom-palette-recolor/SKILL.md

name, description

name	description
noctalia-custom-palette-recolor	Recolor a live Noctalia desktop (accent, terminal palette, terminal foreground) by cutting over to a custom palette instead of editing the community-palette cache, then re-rendering and reloading templates.

Noctalia custom-palette recolor

Recolor the running Noctalia shell + all themed apps without restarting the session.

Why custom, never the community cache

• ~/.local/state/noctalia/community-palettes/*.json is a sync cache. ~/.local/state/noctalia/community-palettes/.catalog/palettes.json carries an md5 per palette and noctalia re-fetches from https://api.noctalia.dev/palettes. Edits there get reverted.
• Custom palettes live at ~/.config/noctalia/palettes/<Name>.json (NOCTALIA_CONFIG_HOME then XDG_CONFIG_HOME honored) and are never synced. Missing/invalid file → silent fallback to the builtin palette.
• Palette JSON shape = the community file's shape: dark/light maps of mPrimary, mOnPrimary, mSecondary, mTertiary, mError, mSurface, mSurfaceVariant, mOutline, mShadow, mHover plus a terminal block (foreground, background, normal.{black..white}, bright.{...}, cursor, cursorText, selectionFg, selectionBg). NOTE: noctalia theme -o emits M3 snake_case tokens (on_primary_container, …) — that is the generator format, not this one. Copy an existing community JSON and mutate it with jq.

Procedure

1. Read the live scheme first — never assume: noctalia msg color-scheme-get → e.g. community Gruber Darker; noctalia msg theme-mode-get.
2. Back up settings: cp -a ~/.local/state/noctalia/settings.toml /tmp/noctalia-settings-backup-$(date +%s).toml.
3. Build the palette from the current one (jq keeps structure; no hand-editing 2 KB of JSON):

   mkdir -p ~/.config/noctalia/palettes
   jq '.dark.mPrimary = "#f43841"
       | .dark.terminal.normal.yellow = "#f43841"
       | .dark.terminal.bright.yellow = "#ff4f58"
       | .dark.terminal.foreground   = "#f43841"' \
      "$HOME/.local/state/noctalia/community-palettes/Gruber%20Darker.json" \
      > ~/.config/noctalia/palettes/"Gruber Red.json"
   

   Prefer a hex already present in the palette (its own mError red / accent) so the theme stays internally consistent. Set BOTH normal and bright variants, and both dark and light if the user toggles modes.
4. Switch (persists theme.source = custom + theme.custom_palette): noctalia msg color-scheme-set custom "Gruber Red" → ok; confirm with noctalia msg color-scheme-get.
5. Re-render every configured template: noctalia msg templates-apply. Regenerates ~/.config/ghostty/themes/noctalia, ~/.config/gtk-{3,4}.0/noctalia.css, kcolorscheme, foot, wezterm, starship, etc. Some of those paths are symlinked into the dotfiles repo → they show up as modified files worth committing.
6. Reload surfaces:
   • Compositor (focus border, noctalia.kdl): niri msg action load-config-file. reload-config is NOT a valid niri subcommand.
   • Ghostty: see the reload trap below.

Verification

• ghostty +show-config | grep -E '^(foreground|palette)' — proves the theme file resolves into the config (e.g. foreground = #f43841, palette 3/11 red).
• noctalia config validate → ✓ Config is valid.
• Visual: noctalia msg screenshot-fullscreen saves to ~/Pictures/screenshot_<ts>.png (it ALSO overwrites the clipboard with the PNG — warn the user). read that PNG to confirm accent/toggle/border color.
• grep -c <old-hex> ~/.config/noctalia/palettes/*.json → 0 for no leftovers.

Track it in the dotfiles repo (command-center ~/.omp)

scripts/deploy.sh is a stow-equivalent: packages are home-relative trees under dotfiles/<pkg>/, and deploying replaces live files with symlinks into the repo. Mirror that shape for the new palette so git pull + deploy.sh is the whole propagation story:

mkdir -p ~/.omp/dotfiles/noctalia/.config/noctalia/palettes
mv ~/.config/noctalia/palettes/"<Name>.json" ~/.omp/dotfiles/noctalia/.config/noctalia/palettes/
ln -s "$HOME/.omp/dotfiles/noctalia/.config/noctalia/palettes/<Name>.json" \
      ~/.config/noctalia/palettes/"<Name>.json"
noctalia msg color-scheme-set custom "<Name>"   # re-reads through the symlink; expect ok

Do the link by hand for one file instead of running deploy.sh — sync mode quarantines and replaces every divergent live file, which is broader than a single-palette change.

Traps

• NEVER kill -USR1 ghostty to reload. It does not reload config on this fleet — it kills/respawns the terminal (took out Frank's window 2026-09-13; he said "stop killing the terminal"). Correct: the default keybind ctrl+shift+, = reload_config, per ghostty +show-config --default. Existing windows keep old colors until reloaded; new windows inherit immediately.
• Palette hex values are NOT a proxy for what the user sees: in Gruber Darker the accent (mPrimary) is yellow #ffdd33, so "change the yellow" means the accent too, not just terminal index 3.
• Terminal text turned into a saturated color makes ANSI 1/9 indistinguishable from default text (grep highlights flatten) — flag it and offer a lighter red.
• Contrast sanity: #f43841 on #181818 ≈ 4.6:1 (dark-on-color beats white-on-color here, ~3.9:1, so keep mOnPrimary dark).
• Revert = noctalia msg color-scheme-set community "<original name>"; the community cache is untouched by this whole flow.
• ghostty +show-config prints only the delta from Ghostty defaults — a key whose value equals the default (e.g. font-size = 12) simply does not appear. Cross-check with ghostty +show-config --default before concluding a key is unset.
• Generated theme files that are symlinked into the dotfiles repo (gtk-3.0/gtk-4.0 noctalia.css, ghostty theme) show up as tracked modifications after templates-apply; commit them together with the new palette JSON so every machine gets the same recolor.