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Remove dark-mode-notify, document the native approach

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The launchd agent ran `pkill -usr1 zsh` on every appearance change, which made
every shell re-source .zshrc. That could never have achieved its goal: the tmux
status bar belongs to the tmux server and colours to a running nvim, so
re-sourcing a shell rc cannot retheme either. The one variable it set,
MACOS_APPEARANCE, was read by nothing. Its only real effect was firing on each
unlock — 5253 times on this machine, 3437 on the iMac — which is what drove the
~/.gitconfig.lock contention fixed in 583bbaa.

The agent and plist are removed from both machines; this drops the script.
ghostty, bat, delta and nvim all handle appearance natively, and tmux 3.6+
detects it over OSC 2031 (#{client_theme} already reports correctly). Wiring the
tmux client-light-theme/client-dark-theme hooks is left as the next step.

Also refreshes the stale parts of the README: the intro still explained
~/.gitconfig as a copy because .extra edited it, and the .extra example still
showed the `git config --global` calls that caused the lock errors, plus the
misspelled GIT_COMMITER_* vars. Following it would have reinstated the bug.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
This commit is contained in:
Jonny Barnes 2026-08-09 11:37:24 +01:00
commit 59d5622442
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110
README.md
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@ -4,65 +4,83 @@ Here’s my dotfiles, inspired by people like Mathias. See his dotfiles at
[`https://github.com/mathias/dotfiles`](https://github.com/mathias/dotfiles).
The idea I’m currently going down is to create a symlink from `$HOME` to this
directory. There is one exception to this, the `.gitconfig` file. I don’t want actual commiter details committed into this repo. So my git credentials are
stored in a `.extra` file which gets sourced. This then calls the relavent git
command, which causes git to edit `$HOME/.gitconfig`. If that file was a symlink
to this repo, then the repo would see the file as edited and the repo would then
be in a dirty state, permanently.
directory. There is one exception to this, the `.gitconfig` file. I don’t want
actual commiter details committed into this repo, and they differ per machine
anyway — this Mac signs with my work address, the iMac with my personal one.
So identity and signing live in an untracked `$HOME/.gitconfig.local`, which the
tracked `gitconfig` pulls in with an `[include]` as its **last** directive. Last
matters: git applies config in file order, so anything after the include would
override it.
`$HOME/.gitconfig` is copied rather than symlinked, so that an ad-hoc
`git config --global` writes into `$HOME` instead of dirtying this repo. The
trade-off is that `git pull` alone does not update it — re-run `./bootstrap.sh`,
or `cp gitconfig ~/.gitconfig`, after changing the tracked copy.
## Usage
First clone the repo.
As mentioned above my git credentials are stored in an untracked file:
`$HOME/.extra`. This must be manually created, mine looks something like:
```
# Git credentials
GIT_AUTHOR_NAME="Jonny Barnes"
GIT_COMMITER_NAME="$GIT_AUTHOR_NAME"
git config --global user.name "$GIT_AUTHOR_NAME"
GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL="jonny@jonnybarnes.uk"
GIT_COMMITER_EMAIL="$GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL"
git config --global user.email "$GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL"
```
Run `./boostrap.sh`, this will create all the necessary symlinks, then source
Run `./bootstrap.sh`, this will create all the necessary symlinks, then source
`.zshrc`.
> [!WARNING]
> This is a **destructive** process, so backup your dotfiles first.
## Auto switch between light and dark mode
As mentioned above, git identity lives in an untracked `$HOME/.gitconfig.local`.
`bootstrap.sh` seeds it from `gitconfig.local.template` if it does not already
exist, and never overwrites an existing one. Fill it in:
To switch between dark and light mode automatically, we use a helper lib.
```
[user]
name = Jonny Barnes
email = jonny@jonnybarnes.uk
signingkey = ssh-ed25519 AAAA...
Clone it from `https://github.com/bouk/dark-mode-notify` then run `make` and `make install`.
[commit]
gpgsign = true
Then make a script to run is automatically, put the plist where your system can find it: `~/Library/LaunchAgents/ke.bou.dark-mode-notify.plist` with the following content:
```xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN"
"http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>Label</key>
<string>ke.bou.dark-mode-notify</string>
<key>KeepAlive</key>
<true/>
<key>StandardErrorPath</key>
<string>/Users/jonny/.local/var/log/dark-mode-notify-stderr.log</string>
<key>StandardOutPath</key>
<string>/Users/jonny/.local/var/log/dark-mode-notify-stdout.log</string>
<key>ProgramArguments</key>
<array>
<string>/usr/local/bin/dark-mode-notify</string>
<string>/Users/jonny/git/dotfiles/zsh/dark-mode-notify.zsh</string>
</array>
</dict>
</plist>
[gpg "ssh"]
program = /Applications/1Password.app/Contents/MacOS/op-ssh-sign
```
Make the log file and script file point to the right location. For clarity `dark-mode-notify.zsh` is in this repo.
Do not skip this. Git will not prompt you — with no identity it quietly derives
one from your username and hostname, warns once, and signs nothing.
`$HOME/.extra` is a separate untracked file for other machine-local environment
variables, sourced from `.zshrc`. Keep git out of it:
> [!IMPORTANT]
> Never put `git config --global` in `.extra`. It is re-sourced on every
> `SIGUSR1`, so with several tmux panes the concurrent writes race on
> `~/.gitconfig.lock` and spew `error: could not lock config file`. Put git
> settings in `.gitconfig.local` instead.
## Light and dark mode
Most of this is now handled natively and needs no configuration:
- **ghostty** follows the system appearance itself via
`theme = light:tangere-light.conf,dark:tangere-dark.conf`.
- **tmux** 3.6+ learns the terminal’s theme over OSC 2031 and exposes it as
`#{client_theme}`.
- **bat** picks a theme per invocation from `BAT_THEME_LIGHT` / `BAT_THEME_DARK`.
- **delta** and **nvim** detect the terminal background themselves.
Still outstanding: the tmux status bar is hardcoded to dark-tuned colours, so it
is unreadable in light mode. tmux has `client-light-theme` and
`client-dark-theme` hooks for exactly this — not yet wired up.
Both machines currently run pinned Dark, so the delta and nvim behaviour above is
documented-but-untested here. Worth re-checking when Auto goes back on.
> [!NOTE]
> This previously used [`dark-mode-notify`](https://github.com/bouk/dark-mode-notify)
> as a `launchd` agent that ran `pkill -usr1 zsh` on every appearance change.
> That has been removed. It could never have worked: re-sourcing `.zshrc` runs
> inside each *shell*, but the status bar belongs to the tmux *server* and
> colours to a running nvim, so it could not retheme either. The one variable it
> set was read by nothing. Meanwhile it fired on every unlock, re-running
> `.zshrc` in every pane. Don’t bring it back.

23
zsh/dark-mode-notify.zsh
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@ -1,23 +0,0 @@
#!/usr/bin/env zsh
function switch-dark-mode()
{
local darkMode=true;
if [[ $(defaults read -g AppleInterfaceStyle 2> /dev/null) != 'Dark' ]]; then
darkMode=false
fi
if [[ $darkMode == true ]]; then
echo "Switched to dark mode"
export MACOS_APPEARANCE="dark"
else
echo "Switched to light mode"
export MACOS_APPEARANCE="light"
fi
# Reload zshrc
pkill -usr1 zsh
}
switch-dark-mode