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Powerlevel10k gives you two independent levers for controlling prompt colors: the terminal color palette and POWERLEVEL9K_* configuration parameters. You can use either approach alone or combine them. After making changes, run source ~/.p10k.zsh to apply them to the current session without restarting Zsh.

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Approach 1 — Change the Terminal Color Palette

Every terminal emulator lets you customize the 16 base colors (numbered 0–15) that form the “ANSI” palette. When you select a color scheme such as Tango Dark, Solarized Dark, or Nord in your terminal’s preferences, you are remapping these 16 slots. Because Powerlevel10k uses colors 0–15 for the following prompt styles, changing the palette directly changes how those styles look:
  • Rainbow — uses terminal palette colors for the vcs and other segments
  • Lean → 8 colors — confines all segment colors to palette colors 0–7
  • Pure → Original — uses only palette colors
Other styles (Lean with 256 colors, Classic, Rainbow with explicit color values) use fixed colors in the 16–255 range and look the same regardless of the terminal’s palette. To change the palette, look for a Colors, Color Scheme, or Appearance section in your terminal’s preferences. Common terminals:
  • iTerm2: Preferences → Profiles → Colors → Color Presets
  • GNOME Terminal: Preferences → (profile) → Colors
  • Windows Terminal: Settings → (profile) → Appearance → Color scheme
  • Alacritty: colors: section in ~/.config/alacritty/alacritty.toml
  • kitty: ~/.config/kitty/kitty.conf color settings

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Approach 2 — Set POWERLEVEL9K_* Parameters

Every prompt segment respects a POWERLEVEL9K_<SEGMENT>_FOREGROUND and POWERLEVEL9K_<SEGMENT>_BACKGROUND parameter. Open ~/.p10k.zsh, search for the segment name, and adjust the values.

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Numbered Colors (0–255)

Colors 0–15 are terminal-palette colors — they look different depending on your terminal’s color scheme. Colors 16–255 are fixed xterm colors — they always display the same regardless of the terminal palette. 
# Set the foreground of the 'time' segment to bright red (fixed color)
typeset -g POWERLEVEL9K_TIME_FOREGROUND=160

# Set the background of the 'dir' segment to terminal's "blue" (palette-dependent)
typeset -g POWERLEVEL9K_DIR_BACKGROUND=4
typeset -g POWERLEVEL9K_DIR_FOREGROUND=254
To see how all 256 colors look in your terminal, run this one-liner: 
for i in {0..255}; do print -Pn "%K{$i}  %k%F{$i}${(l:3::0:)i}%f " ${${(M)$((i%6)):#3}:+$'\n'}; done

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24-bit Truecolor (#RRGGBB)

If your terminal supports truecolor, you can specify any color using a CSS-style hex triplet: 
# Exact RGB values — requires terminal truecolor support
typeset -g POWERLEVEL9K_TIME_FOREGROUND='#FF0000'
typeset -g POWERLEVEL9K_DIR_BACKGROUND='#1C4A7A'
Verify truecolor support with: 
print -P '%F{#ff0000}red%f'
If the text appears red, your terminal has truecolor. If it appears in a different color, truecolor is not available and you should use numbered colors instead. 
# Works in all 256-color terminals
typeset -g POWERLEVEL9K_TIME_FOREGROUND=160

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Applying Changes

source ~/.p10k.zsh
This reloads the configuration in the current session. For changes to POWERLEVEL9K_LEFT_PROMPT_ELEMENTS or POWERLEVEL9K_RIGHT_PROMPT_ELEMENTS, use p10k reload instead.

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Icon Mode (POWERLEVEL9K_MODE)

The POWERLEVEL9K_MODE parameter controls which icon set Powerlevel10k uses. It is best set by p10k configure, but you can change it manually:
ValueIcon set
nerdfont-completeFull Nerd Fonts icon set (Nerd Fonts v2 / older releases)
nerdfont-v3Nerd Fonts v3 icon set (recommended for Nerd Fonts v3+)
powerlinePowerline-only icons (no Nerd Font required)
asciiPlain ASCII characters; works with any font and locale
typeset -g POWERLEVEL9K_MODE=nerdfont-complete

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VCS Loading Background

When Powerlevel10k is computing Git status asynchronously, the vcs segment briefly displays with a grey loading background. In Rainbow style this can be hard to read. Adjust the loading color with: 
# In ~/.p10k.zsh — uncomment and change the value
typeset -g POWERLEVEL9K_VCS_LOADING_BACKGROUND=244

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Rainbow Style — Directory Visibility

In Rainbow style the current directory is shown as white text on a blue background. If your terminal’s blue color is very light, the white text may be hard to read. Adjust the directory segment colors with these parameters in ~/.p10k.zsh: 
typeset -g POWERLEVEL9K_DIR_BACKGROUND=4           # background (terminal "blue" by default)
typeset -g POWERLEVEL9K_DIR_FOREGROUND=254          # regular directory text
typeset -g POWERLEVEL9K_DIR_SHORTENED_FOREGROUND=250 # truncated path segments
typeset -g POWERLEVEL9K_DIR_ANCHOR_FOREGROUND=255   # important (anchor) path segments
typeset -g POWERLEVEL9K_DIR_ANCHOR_BOLD=true        # bold anchors
Change POWERLEVEL9K_DIR_BACKGROUND to a darker blue (e.g., 27) or another color entirely for better contrast.
VSCode Terminal foreground color override. By default, VSCode Terminal applies a minimum contrast ratio algorithm that may replace the foreground color you set with a different one it considers more readable. To disable this behavior, open VSCode settings and set terminal.integrated.minimumContrastRatio to 1. See the VSCode documentation for details.

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