tmux Configuration

Minimal tmux config in the damin palette (#98ABCC blue / #E890B0 pink). Ships 5 themes you can switch without leaving tmux.

Installation

One-liner:

sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/miniex/dotfiles.tmux/main/install.sh)"

It clones to ~/.config/tmux, asks for an OS profile and a theme, writes os.conf and theme.conf, installs a modern tmux-256color terminfo entry if the system one is too old for bracketed paste, then offers to reload a running server. Re-run it any time: an existing clone gets git pull, and both questions default to your current answers. A config that isn't this repo is moved to ~/.config/tmux.backup.<timestamp>, and a legacy ~/.tmux.conf is handled the same way.

Manual:

git clone https://github.com/miniex/dotfiles.tmux.git ~/.config/tmux
sh ~/.config/tmux/install.sh   # OS profile + theme

Needs tmux 3.3 or newer, for menu-selected-style and copy-mode-current-match-style. On Linux install xclip (X11) or wl-clipboard (Wayland) for the yank bindings. On macOS install Homebrew's ncurses (brew install ncurses) so the installer has a modern tmux-256color to copy from; without it that step is skipped with a warning.

Highlights

• Five themes. Switched live with prefix T. The pick lands in theme.conf and is reused on the next start.
• One-key update. prefix U pulls and reloads, keeping your OS profile and theme.
• Window-list gradient. Rebuilt across the live window count on every window create, kill, rename and attach. Both ends come from the active theme.
• Dingbats, not Nerd Font icons. Any font with basic Unicode coverage works. damin-geek is plain ASCII instead.
• Prefix indicator. The leftmost glyph changes color while the prefix key is held.
• Themed widgets. Popup and menu borders, copy-mode matches and prefix q pane numbers all follow the active theme.
• OS profiles. os/linux.conf (xclip / wl-copy) and os/macos.conf (pbcopy / pbpaste).
• Bracketed-paste fix. Where the system tmux-256color predates bracketed paste, mostly on macOS, the installer drops a modern entry into ~/.terminfo so pastes stop leaking [200~ markers into vim, psql and friends.
• Sane defaults. Ctrl-a prefix, vi mode, mouse, 24-bit color, 50k history, base-index 1, renumbered windows, splits that inherit cwd.

Key Bindings

Prefix is Ctrl-a, rebound from the default Ctrl-b. prefix r means press Ctrl-a, release, then r.

Key	Description
prefix r	Reload tmux.conf
prefix T	Pick a theme, applied live
prefix U	Update and reload, in a popup
prefix | / prefix -	Split horizontal / vertical (inherits cwd)
prefix h/j/k/l	Select pane
prefix H/J/K/L	Resize pane (repeatable)
prefix > / prefix <	Swap window forward / backward
prefix Enter	Enter copy-mode
v / V / C-v	Begin / line / block selection
y	Yank to system clipboard (per OS)
prefix P	Paste from system clipboard

Themes

Theme	Colors	Notes
damin (default)	#98ABCC borders, #E890B0 highlight	Same palette as btop-theme-damin and dotfiles.kitty.
damin-blue	#6F7E96 to #D4E0EF, six steps	No pink. Blue only, brightness carries the emphasis.
damin-light	#4A6FA5 / #C25E86	Darkened for light terminal backgrounds.
damin-mono	#9a9a9a / #e0e0e0	Greyscale. Emphasis comes from brightness.
damin-geek	#008F11 / #00FF41	Phosphor green, ASCII glyphs only, square popup borders.

Switching:

prefix T                                       # picker, inside tmux

sh ~/.config/tmux/bin/theme.sh list
sh ~/.config/tmux/bin/theme.sh set damin-geek
sh ~/.config/tmux/install.sh                   # asks again, current theme as default

The pick lands in theme.conf, a generated one-line file that tmux.conf sources on start and on reload. Same trick as os.conf. Both are gitignored, so updates leave them alone.

Writing your own: copy a file out of themes/, save it as themes/mine.local.conf, and it shows up in the picker (*.local.conf is gitignored). A switch re-sources one file and nothing else, so every theme has to set the same option list, or values from the previous theme stay behind. On top of the tmux options, each theme sets:

Option	Purpose
@theme_name	Name shown in the picker.
@theme_grad_start, @theme_grad_end	#RRGGBB ends of the window-list gradient.
@theme_win_format	Window-list template. @C is replaced with the gradient color.
@theme_win_current_format	Same, for the active window.

Updating

prefix U opens a popup running bin/update.sh: git pull --ff-only, restore the executable bits, re-source tmux.conf. os.conf and theme.conf are untracked, so the OS profile and the theme carry over. If the theme you picked is gone from the repo, it falls back to damin instead of leaving a half-styled bar.

sh ~/.config/tmux/bin/update.sh

install.sh updates as well, and asks the two questions again.

Companion repos

• btop-theme-damin - btop theme
• fish-theme-damin - fish prompt
• dotfiles.kitty - kitty terminal config
• dotfiles.nvim - Neovim config

Contributing

Personal dotfiles, so outside contributions are not accepted. Fork instead. Bug reports for the published behavior are welcome. See CONTRIBUTING.md.

License

MIT © 2026 Han Damin.