[Bug] Docked plugin panes render opaque background, ignoring terminal transparency

Status Open
Reported on v2.1.292
Maintainer reply None cached
Activity 1 comment · opened Oct 7, 2026

Bug Description
Title: Docked plugin panes paint an opaque background; no way to let a translucent terminal background show through

Summary
In fullscreen mode, a docked plugin Pane is drawn with an opaque background. The main transcript is not. With a translucent terminal (for example Ghostty with background-opacity = 0.6), the chat area shows the terminal's background but the dock is a solid block.

Environment

  • Claude Code 2.1.x, fullscreen, terminal at least 110 columns wide so the pane docks
  • macOS, Ghostty with background-opacity = 0.6
  • Plugin: glowup 0.9.0 (MIT), plus a bare test pane (below)

Repro

  1. Set a translucent terminal background.
  2. Make a minimal plugin whose ui.render hook for { component: 'Pane' } returns <Box><Text>hello</Text></Box>. It sets no colours and no backgroundColor.
  3. Open the pane with $.ui.open({ id, title }).
  4. The dock is opaque. The transcript beside it is translucent.

What I ruled out

  • The plugin sets no background. The test pane above has none.
  • /theme dark-ansi makes no difference.
  • Custom themes accept only solid colour values (#rrggbb, ansi:<name> and similar). There is no alpha, and no "default" or "unset" value.
  • PaneOpenArgs and the Pane props have no background or opacity option.
  • I found no settings.json or fullscreen option for it in the docs.

Expected
Some way to let docked panes use the terminal's default background, any of:

  • a PaneOpenArgs option (for example transparent: true)
  • a theme colour value meaning "terminal default / unset" that the dock honours
  • a setting that leaves the dock's cells with an unset background, as the transcript does

Why it matters
Users who run a translucent terminal get a mismatch: a see-through chat beside a solid sidebar. This affects any plugin that uses a docked pane, not just one plugin.

Environment Info

  • Platform: darwin
  • Terminal: ghostty
  • Version: 2.1.292
  • Feedback ID: 65838b4c-7219-43ce-9118-941567925ab4

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