dotfiles/README.md
Jonny Barnes 39d52fbbcf
Record verified light-mode results for the theme hooks
Tested with the system actually in light mode rather than inferred from dark:

- the status bar switches in the same second client-light-theme fires
- a fresh nvim reports background=light, so the OSC 11 round trip through tmux
  to ghostty works and restarting nvim is genuinely sufficient
- delta resolves syntax-theme = GitHub, its light default, against Monokai
  Extended on dark, so it does detect the terminal background

Both the nvim and delta checks needed a real tty to be meaningful. Run with
stdout on a pipe they each fall back to their dark default, which looks like a
correct answer while proving nothing.

Also documents why the first Light switch did not move the status bar: tmux
enables the terminal's theme-reporting mode when a client attaches, so the
client that predated these hooks was never asked to report changes. A detach and
reattach fixes it, and a fresh server never sees it.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-09 12:53:03 +01:00

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# dotfiles
Heres my dotfiles, inspired by people like Mathias. See his dotfiles at
[`https://github.com/mathias/dotfiles`](https://github.com/mathias/dotfiles).
The idea Im currently going down is to create a symlink from `$HOME` to this
directory. There is one exception to this, the `.gitconfig` file. I dont want
actual commiter details committed into this repo, and they differ per machine
anyway — this Mac signs with my work address, the iMac with my personal one.
So identity and signing live in an untracked `$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.
Run `./bootstrap.sh`, this will create all the necessary symlinks, then source
`.zshrc`.
> [!WARNING]
> This is a **destructive** process, so backup your dotfiles first.
As mentioned above, git identity lives in an untracked `$HOME/.gitconfig.local`.
`bootstrap.sh` seeds it from `gitconfig.local.template` if it does not already
exist, and never overwrites an existing one. Fill it in:
```
[user]
name = Jonny Barnes
email = jonny@jonnybarnes.uk
signingkey = ssh-ed25519 AAAA...
[commit]
gpgsign = true
[gpg "ssh"]
program = /Applications/1Password.app/Contents/MacOS/op-ssh-sign
```
Do not skip this. Git will not prompt you — with no identity it quietly derives
one from your username and hostname, warns once, and signs nothing.
`$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 terminals 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.
The tmux status bar needs help, because its colours are set explicitly. They live
in `tmux-light.conf` and `tmux-dark.conf` — the same layout, with each colour
taken from the matching tangere palette index — and `tmux` sources one of them
from three hooks:
- `client-light-theme` / `client-dark-theme` react to a change,
- `client-attached` picks the right one for a client that attaches mid-way, since
the two above only fire on a change.
Because this keys off the terminal's reported theme rather than a schedule, it
behaves identically whether the change came from Auto at sunrise/sunset or from
toggling Light/Dark by hand — nothing in the chain knows why it changed.
> [!NOTE]
> A running nvim will not follow a live change: the docs are explicit that the
> TUI sets `background` *on startup* if it can detect it. New instances are
> fine — verified, a fresh nvim in light mode reports `background=light` — but
> existing ones need `:set background=light` or a restart.
Verified in light mode: the status bar switches in the same second the hook
fires, a fresh nvim detects `light`, and delta resolves its light default
(`syntax-theme = GitHub`, against `Monokai Extended` on dark).
> [!TIP]
> When adding these hooks to an *already running* tmux server, detach and
> reattach. tmux enables the terminals theme-reporting mode when a client
> attaches, so a client that predates the hooks never gets asked to report
> changes — `#{client_theme}` still reads correctly, because that is answered by
> a direct query, but no hook fires until the client reattaches.
> [!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. Dont bring it back.