OpenGauss Skins and Themes: Customize the CLI Appearance

OpenGauss ships with a data-driven skin engine that lets you completely reshape the CLI’s visual appearance without touching any code. Skins control everything visible in the terminal: the banner’s colors and borders, the animated spinner’s faces and verbs, the response box label, the prompt symbol, tool-output line prefixes, per-tool emojis, and all branding text. You define a skin as a plain YAML file and drop it in ~/.gauss/skins/ — no reinstall or rebuild needed.

Activating a skin

Switch skins at any time inside a running gauss session with /skin <name>. The change takes effect immediately on the next prompt — no restart required.

At runtime (instant, session-local):

/skin ares
/skin mono
/skin cyberpunk     # your custom skin
/skin               # list available skins

Permanently (saved to config):

gauss config set display.skin ares

Or edit ~/.gauss/config.yaml directly:

display:
  skin: "ares"

Built-in skins

OpenGauss includes seven built-in skins. All are shown in gauss with /skin.

default

Classic Gauss — warm gold and amber tones with kawaii branding. The out-of-the-box look.

ares

War-god theme — deep crimson and bronze with custom spinner wings (⟪⚔ … ⚔⟫) and war-themed thinking verbs.

mono

Clean grayscale monochrome. Minimal, distraction-free, easy on the eyes in bright environments.

slate

Cool blue developer-focused theme. Royal blue borders, sky-blue titles, and teal accents.

poseidon

Ocean-god theme — deep blue and seafoam with wave-inspired spinner verbs and trident branding.

sisyphus

Austere grayscale with persistence-themed verbs (“pushing uphill”, “enduring the loop”) and a boulder banner hero.

charizard

Volcanic theme — burnt orange and ember with fire-themed spinner verbs and a flame-tail hero.

What skins customize

Every skin field is optional. Any key you omit inherits from the default skin automatically, so you only need to specify what you want to change.

Element	Skin key	Description
Banner panel border	`colors.banner_border`	Hex color for the outer border of the startup banner
Banner title text	`colors.banner_title`	Hex color for the large title in the banner
Banner section headers	`colors.banner_accent`	Hex color for “Available Tools”, “Skills”, etc.
Banner dim/muted text	`colors.banner_dim`	Hex color for separators and labels
Banner body text	`colors.banner_text`	Hex color for tool names and skill names in the banner
General UI accent	`colors.ui_accent`	Hex color for general UI highlight elements
UI labels	`colors.ui_label`	Hex color for UI label text
Success indicators	`colors.ui_ok`	Hex color for ✓ / success states
Error indicators	`colors.ui_error`	Hex color for error states
Warning indicators	`colors.ui_warn`	Hex color for warning states
Prompt text	`colors.prompt`	Hex color for input area text
Input area rule	`colors.input_rule`	Hex color for the horizontal rule above the prompt
Response box border	`colors.response_border`	ANSI color for the response panel border
Session label	`colors.session_label`	Hex color for the session ID label
Session border	`colors.session_border`	Hex color for the session ID dim border
Spinner waiting faces	`spinner.waiting_faces`	List of face strings shown while waiting for the API
Spinner thinking faces	`spinner.thinking_faces`	List of face strings shown during model reasoning
Spinner verbs	`spinner.thinking_verbs`	List of verbs for spinner messages (“thinking”, “forging”, …)
Spinner wings	`spinner.wings`	List of `[left, right]` pairs used as spinner decorations
Tool output prefix	`tool_prefix`	Character prepended to each tool output line (default: `┊`)
Per-tool emojis	`tool_emojis`	Map of tool name → emoji used in spinners and progress lines
Agent name	`branding.agent_name`	Shown in the banner title and status display
Welcome message	`branding.welcome`	Printed at CLI startup
Status glyph	`branding.status_glyph`	Glyph in the status bar when the agent is running
Goodbye message	`branding.goodbye`	Printed when you exit `gauss`
Response box label	`branding.response_label`	Header text inside the response panel
Prompt symbol	`branding.prompt_symbol`	Symbol shown before your input text
Help header	`branding.help_header`	Header text shown by `/help`

Creating a custom skin

Drop a YAML file at ~/.gauss/skins/<name>.yaml. The name field inside the file must match the filename (without .yaml). Activate it with /skin <name> or display.skin: <name> in config.yaml.

# ~/.gauss/skins/cyberpunk.yaml
name: cyberpunk
description: Neon-soaked terminal theme

colors:
  banner_border: "#FF00FF"
  banner_title: "#00FFFF"
  banner_accent: "#FF1493"
  banner_dim: "#8B008B"
  banner_text: "#E0E0FF"
  ui_accent: "#FF1493"
  ui_label: "#00FFFF"
  ui_ok: "#39FF14"
  ui_error: "#FF073A"
  ui_warn: "#FF6600"
  prompt: "#E0E0FF"
  input_rule: "#FF00FF"
  response_border: "#00FFFF"
  session_label: "#FF1493"
  session_border: "#6A0572"

spinner:
  thinking_verbs:
    - "jacking in"
    - "decrypting"
    - "uploading"
    - "bypassing ICE"
    - "pinging the net"
  wings:
    - ["⟨⚡", "⚡⟩"]
    - ["⟨◈", "◈⟩"]

branding:
  agent_name: "Cyber Agent"
  welcome: "ICE BROKEN. CONNECTION ESTABLISHED. Type /help for commands."
  status_glyph: "⚡"
  goodbye: "Disconnecting from the net. ⚡"
  response_label: " ⚡ Cyber "
  prompt_symbol: "⚡ ❯ "
  help_header: "(⚡) Available Commands"

tool_prefix: "▏"

tool_emojis:
  terminal: "⚡"
  web_search: "🔮"
  browser_navigate: "🌐"

SkinConfig structure

The skin engine parses each YAML file into a SkinConfig object with these fields:

Field	Type	Description
`name`	`str`	Unique skin identifier
`description`	`str`	Short description shown in `/skin` listing
`colors`	`dict[str, str]`	Hex color values for UI elements
`spinner`	`dict[str, Any]`	Spinner faces, verbs, and wings
`branding`	`dict[str, str]`	Text strings used throughout the CLI
`tool_prefix`	`str`	Character prepended to tool output lines
`tool_emojis`	`dict[str, str]`	Per-tool emoji overrides
`banner_logo`	`str`	Rich-markup ASCII art logo (wide terminals)
`banner_logo_compact`	`str`	Rich-markup logo for narrow terminals
`banner_hero`	`str`	Rich-markup hero art (wide terminals)
`banner_hero_compact`	`str`	Rich-markup hero art for narrow terminals

Accessing skin values in Python

from gauss_cli.skin_engine import get_active_skin, set_active_skin

skin = get_active_skin()
print(skin.colors["banner_title"])          # "#FFD700"
print(skin.get_branding("agent_name"))      # "Gauss"
print(skin.get_spinner_list("thinking_verbs"))
print(skin.get_spinner_wings())             # [("⟪⚔", "⚔⟫"), ...]

set_active_skin("ares")       # switch built-in
set_active_skin("cyberpunk")  # switch to user skin from ~/.gauss/skins/

Inheritance and fallbacks

Missing fields in a skin automatically inherit from the default skin. This means you can create a minimal skin that only changes colors and keep the default branding, spinner, and tool prefix:

name: rose
description: Soft rose gold theme

colors:
  banner_border: "#B76E79"
  banner_title: "#F4A7B9"
  banner_accent: "#F08080"
  input_rule: "#B76E79"
  response_border: "#F4A7B9"
# Everything else — branding, spinner, tool_prefix — inherits from default

The skin engine loads user skins first (from ~/.gauss/skins/), then built-ins, and finally falls back to default if a skin name is not found.

Skin search order

When you run /skin <name> or set display.skin: <name>, the engine searches in this order:

User skins directory

~/.gauss/skins/<name>.yaml — your custom skins take precedence over built-ins.

Built-in skins

The seven built-in skins compiled into the skin engine: default, ares, mono, slate, poseidon, sisyphus, charizard.

Fallback

If neither source has the requested skin, a warning is logged and the default skin is used automatically.

Get Started

Core Concepts

Configuration

Guides

OpenGauss Skins and Themes: Customize the CLI Appearance

Activating a skin

Built-in skins

default

ares

mono

slate

poseidon

sisyphus

charizard

What skins customize

Creating a custom skin

SkinConfig structure

Accessing skin values in Python

Inheritance and fallbacks

Skin search order

Build docs developers (and LLMs) love

Get Started

Core Concepts

Configuration

Guides

Documentation Index

​Activating a skin

​Built-in skins

default

ares

mono

slate

poseidon

sisyphus

charizard

​What skins customize

​Creating a custom skin

​SkinConfig structure

​Accessing skin values in Python

​Inheritance and fallbacks

​Skin search order

Build docs developers (and LLMs) love

Activating a skin

Built-in skins

What skins customize

Creating a custom skin

SkinConfig structure

Accessing skin values in Python

Inheritance and fallbacks

Skin search order