Themes

Themes set the colors of log levels, highlighting, and pgtail’s own interface.

Built-in themes

Theme	Description
dark	Default dark theme for dark terminal backgrounds
light	Light theme for light terminal backgrounds
high-contrast	High contrast theme for accessibility
monokai	Monokai editor color scheme
solarized-dark	Solarized dark color scheme for reduced eye strain
solarized-light	Solarized light color scheme for reduced eye strain

Switching themes

pgtail> theme light
pgtail> theme monokai

The choice is saved to the configuration file as theme.name, so pgtail starts with it next time. theme <name> works in tail mode too, and redraws the log. theme on its own shows the current theme.

Previewing themes

pgtail> theme preview solarized-dark

Shows sample log lines in a theme without switching to it.

Listing themes

pgtail> theme list

Lists the built-in themes and your custom themes, marking the current one.

Custom themes

Creating a custom theme

pgtail> theme edit mytheme

For a new name this writes a theme file from a template, then opens it in pgtail’s built-in editor, which highlights the TOML. Ctrl+S checks the theme and saves it only when it is valid, showing any problems in the status line; Esc (or Ctrl+Q) closes the editor, and a second Esc discards unsaved changes. Built-in themes cannot be edited; give your copy a new name, such as theme edit my-dark.

Then switch to it:

pgtail> theme mytheme

Theme file location

Custom themes are TOML files named after the theme, in:

Platform	Path
macOS	~/Library/Application Support/pgtail/themes/
Linux	~/.config/pgtail/themes/ (or $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/pgtail/themes/)
Windows	%APPDATA%\pgtail\themes\

Theme names use lowercase letters, digits, and hyphens.

Theme file format

Each style is a table with fg and bg colors and bold, dim, italic, and underline flags:

mytheme.toml

[meta]
name = "mytheme"
description = "Custom color scheme"

[levels]
PANIC = { fg = "white", bg = "red", bold = true }
FATAL = { fg = "red", bold = true }
ERROR = { fg = "#ff6b6b" }
WARNING = { fg = "#ffd93d" }
NOTICE = { fg = "#6bcb77" }
LOG = { fg = "default" }
INFO = { fg = "#4d96ff" }
DEBUG = { fg = "#888888" }
# DEBUG1-5 inherit from DEBUG if not specified

[ui]
prompt = { fg = "green" }
timestamp = { fg = "gray" }
pid = { fg = "gray" }
highlight = { bg = "yellow", fg = "black" }
slow_warning = { fg = "yellow" }
slow_slow = { fg = "yellow", bold = true }
slow_critical = { fg = "red", bold = true }
detail = { fg = "default" }

# SQL colors
sql_keyword = { fg = "blue", bold = true }
sql_identifier = { fg = "cyan" }
sql_string = { fg = "green" }
sql_number = { fg = "magenta" }
sql_operator = { fg = "yellow" }
sql_comment = { fg = "gray" }
sql_function = { fg = "blue" }

A theme needs at least the ERROR, WARNING, and LOG levels and the timestamp and highlight elements. A level it leaves out uses LOG’s style, and DEBUG1 through DEBUG5 use DEBUG’s. The [ui] table also holds the highlighting colors (the hl_* elements listed under Highlighting).

Colors

• default for the terminal’s own color
• ANSI names that follow your terminal’s palette: red, ansired, bright_black, ansibrightblue
• 256-color palette names such as dark_orange or grey50, and color(208)
• CSS names such as DarkRed or cornflowerblue
• Hex codes (#ff6b6b, #f66) and rgb(255,107,107)

Names ignore case.

Reloading themes

After editing a theme file in another editor:

pgtail> theme reload

NO_COLOR

pgtail follows the NO_COLOR convention:

NO_COLOR=1 pgtail

With NO_COLOR set, output keeps bold, dim, and the other attributes but uses no colors.