ghostty-random-theme

A random Ghostty theme on every new terminal session.

Each time you open a new tab, window, or split, a theme is picked at random from Ghostty's 400+ built-in themes and applied instantly via OSC escape sequences. No config files are modified — colors are set in-memory for that session only.

Why

Someone asked for this in the Ghostty repo and a contributor correctly pointed out that a shell-level solution is the right approach. Here it is.

Install

zsh (macOS default)

git clone https://github.com/merinids212/ghostty-random-theme.git ~/.ghostty-random-theme

# add to your .zshrc
source ~/.ghostty-random-theme/random-theme.zsh

bash (most Linux distros)

git clone https://github.com/merinids212/ghostty-random-theme.git ~/.ghostty-random-theme

# add to your .bashrc
source ~/.ghostty-random-theme/random-theme.bash

Open a new terminal. That's it.

How it works

On shell startup, the script:

1. Checks if you're running inside Ghostty (TERM_PROGRAM)
2. Finds the built-in themes directory via GHOSTTY_RESOURCES_DIR (set by Ghostty on all platforms), with fallbacks for standard install paths
3. Picks one at random using bash/zsh built-in $RANDOM — no external dependencies
4. Parses the theme file and applies colors via OSC escape sequences
5. Prints the theme name so you know what you got

Your Ghostty config file is never touched. Each session gets its own random theme independently.

Curating themes

If 400+ themes is too chaotic, you can limit it to a favorites list.

In your shell's script, find the "Pick a random theme" section and replace it with a hardcoded array:

zsh — replace lines 14–20 in random-theme.zsh:

# Pick a random theme (favorites only)
_favorites=("TokyoNight Night" "Catppuccin Mocha" "Dracula" "Gruvbox Dark")
_theme="${_favorites[RANDOM % $#_favorites + 1]}"
_theme_file="$_ghostty_themes_dir/$_theme"

bash — replace lines 23–28 in random-theme.bash:

# Pick a random theme (favorites only)
_favorites=("TokyoNight Night" "Catppuccin Mocha" "Dracula" "Gruvbox Dark")
_theme="${_favorites[RANDOM % ${#_favorites[@]}]}"
_theme_file="$_ghostty_themes_dir/$_theme"

License

MIT