Add color/theme customization for CLI UI elements
Resolved 💬 2 comments Opened Mar 15, 2026 by tuncay Closed Mar 15, 2026
Problem
Claude Code's interactive UI elements (yes/no prompts, selection highlights, permission dialogs) use hardcoded 24-bit RGB colors via true color escape sequences. These colors bypass the terminal's 16-color ANSI palette entirely, so users cannot adjust them through their terminal theme.
This is an accessibility issue for users with color vision deficiencies. For example, with slight red/green color weakness, the blue highlight on selected options in yes/no prompts is difficult to distinguish from unselected options.
Evidence
- Setting ANSI palette colors 4 (blue) and 12 (bright blue) to completely different colors (hot pink, green) in a Ghostty terminal theme has zero effect on Claude Code's UI blues.
- The same palette changes correctly affect other terminal programs (ls, git, etc.) that use standard ANSI colors.
ghostty +show-configconfirms the terminal is loading the custom palette values.- The Claude Code binary contains hardcoded
rgb(R,G,B)values that get emitted as\x1B[48;2;R;G;Bmsequences.
Requested Feature
A way to customize Claude Code's UI colors — any of these would work:
- Use ANSI palette colors instead of hardcoded RGB for UI elements, so terminal themes can control them
- A config option (e.g.,
claude config set theme.selectionBackground "#RRGGBB") - A high-contrast mode flag for users with color vision deficiencies
- An environment variable to override the color scheme
Environment
- Claude Code 2.1.76
- Terminal: Ghostty (true color supported)
- OS: Arch Linux
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