The Theme Switcher now lives in
hermes dashboardtoo: a full Themes tab with search, Light/Dark tabs, Follow system, Random, and Add-theme, truly responsive desktop-style cards, and a hover detail panel, plus a hover-card readability overhaul on the Desktop page (themed tooltips, guaranteed-contrast previews, opaque panels). All 100 themes, 50 light / 50 dark, every one paired with its twin. See the release notes and the full changelog.
100 curated color themes for Hermes Agent, organized into 7 categories, every one contrast-checked to WCAG AA. Drop them in and they appear across the CLI, the TUI, and the desktop app at once, because a Hermes skin themes every surface.
- 100 themes, 7 categories — Dark, Light, Vibrant, Nature, Minimal, Retro, and Community (10 themes ported from BeardedChop/hermes-skins-pack)
- WCAG AA contrast gate — every theme passes primary text at 6:1, accents and secondary text at 4.5:1 against its background, enforced by an independent test suite
- Themes every surface — one YAML skin repaints the CLI, the TUI, and the desktop app at once
- Theme Switcher desktop plugin — a Themes page in the app sidebar: every skin in one grid, light/dark grouping, search (including palette colors like "purple" or #7b2d8e), hover preview, one-click apply, undo, random, install-from-YAML, statusbar chip, ⌘K palette entry
- Web dashboard Themes tab — the same Theme Switcher lives in
hermes dashboard: search, All/Light/Dark tabs with counts, Follow system, category filter, Random, Add-theme, truly responsive desktop-style cards with a hover detail panel, and instant repaint of the dashboard when a theme is applied - Built-in Appearance integration — pack themes appear in the desktop's native Appearance settings, Cmd-K, and
/skin(via THEMES_AREA) - Copy YAML to share — one click on any user theme card exports the raw skin YAML for sharing
- Add your own theme — paste YAML in the app, drop a file in
~/.hermes/skins/, or use the seed-palette generator - CI-enforced quality — every PR runs YAML validation, the WCAG test suite, generator drift checks, and plugin syntax checks automatically
- Community contribution guide — CONTRIBUTING.md walks contributors through the format, the contrast contract, and verification
In the desktop app, the Theme Switcher page lists every installed skin in a single view, with its real palette, one click to apply. It follows your active skin, so the same page looks like this in light and dark mode:
Light mode (default theme):
Dark mode (dark-charcoal):
| Category | Themes |
|---|---|
| Dark | dark-aubergine, dark-obsidian, dark-charcoal, dark-navy, dark-crimson, dark-dracula, dark-lcars, dark-plum, dark-bone, dark-mac, dark-lemon, dark-sage, dark-vanilla, dark-solarized, dark-gruvbox, dark-tokyo-night, dark-catppuccin, dark-nord, dark-rosepine, dark-one, dark-everforest, dark-kanagawa, dark-ayu, dark-github, dark-material, dark-vscode, dark-cozy-paper |
| Light | light-paper, light-frost, light-cloud, light-cream, light-mint, light-rose, light-sand, light-lavender, light-honey, light-sky, light-peach, light-sage, light-aqua, light-lilac, light-porcelain, light-denim, light-blush, light-grape, light-fern, light-vanilla, light-lemon, light-oat, light-melon, light-tide, light-mist, light-ash, light-dracula, light-lcars, light-stained-glass, light-neon, light-pacific, light-synthwave, light-sunset, light-solarized, light-gruvbox, light-tokyo-day, light-catppuccin, light-nord, light-rosepine, light-one, light-everforest, light-kanagawa, light-ayu, light-github, light-material, light-vscode, light-cozy-paper |
| Vibrant | vibrant-synthwave, vibrant-neon, vibrant-sunset, vibrant-pacific |
| Nature | nature-forest, nature-nordic, nature-desert, nature-ocean, nature-autumn |
| Minimal | minimal-graphite, minimal-bone, minimal-pearl |
| Retro | retro-terminal, retro-amber, retro-blue, retro-mac |
| Community | vaporwave-mall, stained-glass, shadow-thief, void-sunset, redwood, newsprint-noir, peach-fuzz, slate-mist, steel-thread, warm-ash — ported from BeardedChop/hermes-skins-pack |
Every theme with a light/dark counterpart is paired to the same vibe in the
opposite polarity. In the Theme Switcher, paired themes show ⇄ paired with <name> on the card, a ⇄ button applies the twin in one click, and the hover
preview shows both polarities side by side. The pack is 50 light / 50 dark;
every theme is paired — 50 pairs cover all 100 themes.
| Dark | Light | Dark | Light |
|---|---|---|---|
| dark-aubergine | light-lavender | nature-nordic | light-frost |
| dark-ayu | light-ayu | nature-ocean | light-tide |
| dark-bone | minimal-bone | newsprint-noir | light-paper |
| dark-catppuccin | light-catppuccin | peach-fuzz | light-peach |
| dark-charcoal | light-cloud | redwood | light-cream |
| dark-cozy-paper | light-cozy-paper | retro-amber | light-honey |
| dark-crimson | light-rose | retro-blue | light-denim |
| dark-dracula | light-dracula | retro-terminal | light-mint |
| dark-everforest | light-everforest | shadow-thief | light-lilac |
| dark-github | light-github | slate-mist | light-mist |
| dark-gruvbox | light-gruvbox | stained-glass | light-stained-glass |
| dark-kanagawa | light-kanagawa | steel-thread | light-ash |
| dark-lcars | light-lcars | vaporwave-mall | light-aqua |
| dark-lemon | light-lemon | vibrant-neon | light-neon |
| dark-mac | retro-mac | vibrant-pacific | light-pacific |
| dark-material | light-material | vibrant-sunset | light-blush |
| dark-navy | light-sky | vibrant-synthwave | light-synthwave |
| dark-nord | light-nord | void-sunset | light-sunset |
| dark-obsidian | light-porcelain | warm-ash | light-oat |
| dark-one | light-one | nature-autumn | light-melon |
| dark-plum | light-grape | nature-desert | light-sand |
| dark-rosepine | light-rosepine | nature-forest | light-fern |
| dark-sage | light-sage | minimal-graphite | minimal-pearl |
| dark-solarized | light-solarized | dark-vanilla | light-vanilla |
| dark-tokyo-night | light-tokyo-day | dark-vscode | light-vscode |
./install.shOr manually: copy the .yaml files from themes/ into your Hermes skins folder, ~/.hermes/skins/ (profile-aware: $HERMES_HOME/skins/).
The desktop app picks up new skins automatically via the backend skin sync. If they don't appear right away, restart the gateway or reload the desktop app.
hermes config set display.skin dark-aubergineOr in the app: /skin in the CLI, or Appearance → theme in the desktop app. Every surface repaints live within about a second.
Three ways — and if you want to contribute your theme back to the pack, see CONTRIBUTING.md for the full walkthrough:
- In the app: open Themes, click + Add theme, paste a skin YAML, and it installs instantly. The backend validates the shape and rejects malformed input, duplicates, and unsafe names.
- By hand: drop a
.yamlfile into~/.hermes/skins/(profile-aware:$HERMES_HOME/skins/) and it appears everywhere, CLI, TUI, and desktop. - With the generator: add a seed palette to the
THEMESlist at the top ofscripts/generate_themes.pyand re-run it. The generator derives the full color set and enforces the contrast gate for you.
A minimal hand-written skin:
name: my-theme
description: My custom look
colors:
background: "#1a1a2e"
ui_accent: "#ffd700"
banner_text: "#f5f5f5"
banner_dim: "#8a8a8a"
banner_border: "#333355"Contrast is your job in the first two options and the generator's job in the third. For hand-written skins, keep primary text at 6:1 and accents at 4.5:1 against the background.
Every theme is generated from a seed palette by scripts/generate_themes.py, which:
- Derives the full skin color set: background, text hierarchy, accent, borders, status colors, diff colors, syntax colors, completion menu
- Enforces WCAG AA contrast: primary text at 6:1, secondary text and accents at 4.5:1 against the background
- Keeps success, warning, and error recognizable as green, amber, and red
- Uses only
#rrggbbhex, valid for every surface
Re-run the generator to regenerate all skins and the preview gallery, or edit any .yaml by hand and reload.
The pack ships a Theme Switcher in both Hermes surfaces: a "Themes" entry in the native Desktop app's left sidebar and a Themes tab in the web dashboard (hermes dashboard). Both list every installed skin, mark the active one, and apply a new one with one click. No terminal needed to flip themes.
The Desktop page is a Desktop plugin (desktop-plugin/); the dashboard tab is a dashboard plugin (plugins/theme-switcher/dashboard/: a manifest tab plus a prebuilt IIFE bundle). They share the same backend API (/api/plugins/theme-switcher/*) and the same skins, which work across every Hermes surface.
Features:
- Every skin in one view — all installed skins in a compact grid, grouped by category, each card showing the real palette (accent line, name, swatches, description)
- Light / dark symbols — ☀ marks light-based themes, ☾ marks dark-based, computed from the background luminance
- Light and dark groups — themes are sorted into a ☀ Light group and a ☾ Dark group with counts, so the first decision is the polarity one
- Search and filters — type to find a theme, filter by ☀ light / ☾ dark, or by category
- Hover preview — hover any card to see a mockup of the app rendered in that theme's real colors before you apply it
- One-click apply — every surface repaints live through the canonical config writer
- Undo — a banner appears after every apply; click Undo to snap back to the previous theme
- Random — the 🎲 button applies a random theme from the current filter
- Add a theme — paste a skin YAML and it installs into your skins folder and appears on the page instantly (bad YAML, duplicates, and unsafe names are rejected)
- Statusbar chip — the bottom bar shows the active theme with its color dot; click to open the Themes page
- Command palette — ⌘K → "Themes: Open"
Install the backend and desktop plugin. With a local Desktop connection, both commands run on the same machine. With Desktop over SSH, install the backend on the remote backend host and the UI plugin on the local Desktop computer.
On the Hermes backend host:
mkdir -p "${HERMES_HOME:-$HOME/.hermes}/plugins/theme-switcher"
cp -R plugins/theme-switcher/* "${HERMES_HOME:-$HOME/.hermes}/plugins/theme-switcher/"
hermes plugins enable theme-switcherOn the computer running the native Hermes Desktop app:
macOS or Linux:
mkdir -p "${HERMES_HOME:-$HOME/.hermes}/desktop-plugins/theme-switcher"
cp desktop-plugin/theme-switcher/plugin.js "${HERMES_HOME:-$HOME/.hermes}/desktop-plugins/theme-switcher/"Windows PowerShell:
$hermesHome = if ($env:HERMES_HOME) { $env:HERMES_HOME } else { Join-Path $env:LOCALAPPDATA "hermes" }
$destination = Join-Path $hermesHome "desktop-plugins\theme-switcher"
New-Item -ItemType Directory -Force -Path $destination | Out-Null
Copy-Item ".\desktop-plugin\theme-switcher\plugin.js" $destinationThe backend API routes are mounted when the Hermes backend server starts. If the backend was already running when you enabled the plugin, restart or reconnect it before opening Themes; reloading the page or desktop plugin alone cannot mount a missing backend route. For Desktop over SSH, disconnect and reconnect first. If Desktop enters a verification loop or the fresh connection still returns 404, use nonce-aware stale Desktop SSH backend recovery: verify that the process matches Desktop's ownership nonce, terminate only that matching backend, and remove only its matching lock/token state before reconnecting. Do not kill the backend PID directly, because leaving its ownership state behind can prevent Desktop from verifying or restarting the connection.
The dashboard Themes tab rides along with the same backend install step above — cp -R plugins/theme-switcher/* copies dashboard/ including the tab bundle. After installing and enabling, restart hermes dashboard (plugin manifests are read at startup) and open Themes in the nav. If the tab is missing, confirm the backend was restarted after hermes plugins enable theme-switcher; the API routes mount at backend startup, and without them the tab shows its error state.
The tab mirrors the Desktop page: themes are grouped into ☀ Light and ☾ Dark sections with counts (tabs for All / Light / Dark), and every paired theme shows its ⇄ twin with a one-click flip. The toolbar carries the full Desktop set: search, polarity tabs, Follow system (auto-switches to the paired theme when the OS light/dark scheme changes), a category filter, Random (applies a theme from the current filter), and + Add theme (paste a skin YAML to install it, same validation as the Desktop page). Applying a theme also repaints the web dashboard: the backend writes a dashboard-theme YAML from the skin's palette into ~/.hermes/dashboard-themes/ (never overwriting a hand-authored theme of the same name) and sets it active. On Hermes builds with the dashboard plugin SDK's theme bridge (SDK.theme.apply), the page repaints instantly; on older builds, refresh once to see it.
python3 scripts/generate_themes.py # regenerates themes/*.yaml + docs/preview.html
uv run pytest tests/ -q # invariant checks: structure, WCAG gate, idempotency, installer (installs pytest + pyyaml)
open docs/preview.html # browse the galleryThe seed palettes live at the top of the generator script. Add a palette, re-run, and you have a new theme.
MIT.
See CHANGELOG.md for the full history.