Allow customizing user-message background color in TUI
Resolved 💬 3 comments Opened May 2, 2026 by hasher4ever Closed May 6, 2026
What I'd like
Right now user messages render with a subtle grey background block, which blends into the conversation in long sessions. Would love a way to make my own messages stand out — e.g. an orange/highlighted background so I can scan back through a long stack and find where I last interjected.
Suggested surface
- A new
theme.userMessageBackground(or similar) field insettings.json, accepting a color name or hex. - Or a richer theme system where the existing
/config→ Theme picker exposes per-element colors (user msg bg, assistant msg bg, diff bg, tool-call bg, etc.).
Use case
I run very long autonomous sessions and visually re-locating my own interjections in scrollback is harder than it should be. Coloring just the user-message background would solve it without affecting any other rendering, and wouldn't require a full theming overhaul.
Today's workarounds (all unsatisfying)
- Terminal-level pattern triggers (iTerm2 / wezterm) — fragile, depends on Claude Code's exact rendering.
/config→ Theme — only switches dark/light/colorblind palettes; doesn't target user messages specifically.tuisetting — layout only, no color hooks.
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