Themes

HUME colors its interface and your code from a theme: a TOML file in the Helix theme format. Set the active one with the theme option (see Settings) or :theme <name>.

(set-option! "theme" "sand")

To see which themes are available, type :theme and press Tab.

Bundled themes

HUME ships 35 themes. sand is the default.

Family	Themes
Catppuccin	catppuccin_frappe, catppuccin_latte, catppuccin_macchiato, catppuccin_mocha
Dracula	dracula
GitHub	github_dark, github_dark_colorblind, github_dark_dimmed, github_dark_high_contrast, github_dark_tritanopia, github_light, github_light_colorblind, github_light_high_contrast, github_light_tritanopia
Gruvbox	gruvbox, gruvbox_light
Kanagawa	kanagawa, kanagawa-dragon, kanagawa-lotus
Nord	nord, nord-night, nord_light
One Dark	onedark, onedarker, onelight
Rosé Pine	rose_pine, rose_pine_dawn, rose_pine_moon
Sand	sand
Solarized	solarized_dark, solarized_light
Tokyo Night	tokyonight_day, tokyonight_moon, tokyonight_night, tokyonight_storm

HUME falls back to a built-in theme when no sand theme is found or when the theme set in init.scm fails to load.

Where themes live

Hand-authored themes go in the themes/ subdirectory of your HUME config directory, alongside init.scm. A theme installed by a tool goes in the themes/ subdirectory of your HUME data directory instead (see File locations).

A theme in your config directory wins over an installed or bundled one of the same name. To change a bundled theme, copy its file into your config directory's themes/ and edit the copy there.

Theme files

Most Helix themes load and render unchanged. A scope can be written as a flat key ("ui.cursor" = { fg = "..." }) or as a TOML section header ([ui.cursor] / fg = "..."). HUME treats the two the same, but Helix reads only the flat form, so a section-header theme won't work in Helix. The theme editor below exports the flat form.

A color can be a hex literal, a palette name you define, or one of the sixteen terminal color names Helix themes use (red, light-gray, and so on). The names resolve to fixed colors from the standard terminal palette, not to whatever your terminal has those colors set to. A color value in any other form leaves that one entry unstyled instead of failing the whole load, and :messages names it.

HUME has no rainbow-bracket highlighting, so it ignores a Helix theme's top-level rainbow array. The rest of the theme still loads, and :messages reports the entry like any other entry HUME couldn't use.

A theme fails to load outright only when the problem is with the document rather than one entry in it:

• invalid TOML syntax;
• an inherits parent that doesn't exist, forms a cycle, or nests more than eight deep;
• an inherits/palette key that isn't a string/table.

Loading then keeps your current theme.

Installing themes

To install a third-party theme repository, run :plum-install-theme <user/repo> (see Core Plugins → core:plum), for example:

:plum-install-theme cvlmtg/everforest.hume

INFO

cvlmtg/everforest.hume is Everforest, ported from Helix: a green-based, low-contrast color scheme inspired by forest colors in fall.

:theme <Tab> picks it up right away, with no restart.

When two installed repositories ship a theme with the same name, the one you installed or updated last provides it. Removing that repository keeps the theme, from another installed repository that ships it.

To edit themes visually, download the theme editor, a single HTML file you open in a browser. It exports themes as TOML.

Theme scopes

A scope not listed below behaves as Helix's own theme reference describes it. Every syntax-highlighting scope works this way, so the part of a theme that colors your code carries over as-is.

Scopes HUME adds

These have no Helix equivalent:

• ui.cursor.match.search: every visible search match, falling back to ui.cursor.match when unset
• ui.popup.scroll: scrollbar thumb on a scrolled hover popup (Helix only themes a scrollbar for ui.menu)
• ui.window.focused: seam divider segments next to the focused pane, falling back to ui.window
• ui.drawer: background and border of the bottom drawer, the list panel that shows diagnostics, references and similar lists
• ui.tabline / ui.tabline.active: the tab bar's row and its active tab. An unset .active falls back to the base ui.tabline style, unlike the statusline separator below
• ui.statusline.search / .command / .sift: the statusline tint for Search, Command and Sift mode, which Helix doesn't have. Helix's own ui.statusline.normal/.insert/.select work too; .select colors Extend mode, HUME's name for Helix's Select mode
• ui.virtual.invisible: the <200b>-style stand-in for a character the terminal must not be shown as itself (see Buffer options)
• diff.plus.line / diff.minus.line / diff.delta.line: the whole-line background tint core:git-diff paints for an added, deleted, or changed line (diff.minus.line also colors the text of a deleted line). Left undefined, they paint nothing: an unmodified Helix theme colors the gutter marker (through diff.plus, diff.minus and diff.delta) but paints no line tint
• diff.plus.word / diff.minus.word: word-level highlight inside a changed line (core:git-diff's inline diff), inside the line-level .line tint above
• diagnostic.error.message / .warning.message / .info.message / .hint.message and their .message-text counterparts: the :messages log's severity badge and body text
• error.diagnostic.inline / warning.diagnostic.inline / info.diagnostic.inline / hint.diagnostic.inline: the diagnostic summary shown at the end of an offending line. Separate from diagnostic.error and friends, which style the squiggle under the code itself, so the summary doesn't pick up that scope's underline. Each falls back to the matching error/warning/info/hint gutter color when unset

Helix scopes HUME doesn't read

Declaring any of these has no effect.

HUME doesn't have the feature these color:

• debugger (DAP) support: ui.debug, ui.debug.breakpoint, ui.debug.active
• which-key-style prompts: ui.popup.info, ui.help, ui.text.info
• picker preview: ui.highlight, ui.highlight.frameline
• a cursor-column highlight: ui.cursorcolumn, ui.cursorcolumn.primary, ui.cursorcolumn.secondary
• per-kind completion-entry styling: ui.text.directory, ui.text.symlink
• LSP deprecated/unnecessary diagnostic tags: diagnostic.deprecated, diagnostic.unnecessary
• move- or conflict-specific diff styling: diff.delta.moved, diff.delta.conflict
• snippets: tabstop
• ruler columns, the soft-wrap indicator, virtual jump labels, and per-kind inlay hints: ui.virtual.ruler, ui.virtual.wrap, ui.virtual.jump-label, ui.virtual.inlay-hint.parameter, ui.virtual.inlay-hint.type

HUME's interface works differently for these, so put the color in the listed alternative instead:

• ui.picker.header, ui.picker.header.column, ui.picker.header.column.active: HUME's picker has no column headers to style
• ui.gutter, ui.gutter.selected: the gutter takes no background of its own; style it with ui.linenr and ui.linenr.selected
• ui.statusline.inactive, ui.text.inactive: HUME tints the whole statusline row by mode rather than dimming an unfocused one, and dims an unfocused pane as a whole instead of theming an inactive state
• ui.cursorline.secondary: only the primary selection's line is tinted, via ui.cursorline.primary
• ui.background.separator: HUME's prompt line has no separator rule beneath it
• ui.bufferline.background: the tab bar's background comes from ui.tabline (or ui.bufferline, see below), not a separate background layer

Scopes HUME reads differently

ui.window is the seam between split panes. HUME reads that scope's foreground for the divider glyph. A theme that sets only a background gets the theme's base text color (ui.text) for it, the same fallback every other undecorated element uses.

ui.statusline.separator divides the statusline's segments. HUME tints the whole statusline row by mode, so an undefined separator takes the row's current color rather than the untinted ui.statusline. A separator you set explicitly wins, in every mode.

HUME's tab bar shows one tab per saved pane layout, not one per buffer, so it has its own ui.tabline / ui.tabline.active scopes rather than Helix's ui.bufferline / ui.bufferline.active. A theme that sets only the latter (every Helix theme) still renders correctly: ui.tabline falls back to ui.bufferline when unset, and ui.tabline.active to ui.bufferline.active.