Force the Light Theme. Leave the Skin Name Out.

Force the light theme. Leave the skin name out.

export HERMES_TUI_THEME=light swaps the terminal UI to the light theme, whatever the terminal is. Do not put daylight in that variable. The pages do not list a skin name as a value.

I read the TUI page, the environment-variables page, the skins page, and the slash-commands page this morning. I did not launch the TUI. I did not export the variable. I did not run /indicator or /skin. I did not write a skin.

The variable

The TUI page says the TUI auto-detects light terminals and swaps to the light theme. Detection works in three layers. HERMES_TUI_THEME is the highest. The values it prints are light, dark, or a raw 6-character background hex. The examples are ffffff and 1a1a2e. Next is COLORFGBG, which the page calls the classic background hint used by xterm-derived terminals. Third is a terminal background probe via OSC 11. That probe, on this page, works on Ghostty, Warp, iTerm2, WezTerm, and Kitty that don't set COLORFGBG.

If you want the light theme permanently, regardless of terminal, the page prints this:

export HERMES_TUI_THEME=light

The other printed values are dark and that 6-character hex. A skin name is not on the list.

The environment-variables page agrees on the three values, and it uses the word force. When the variable is unset, that row says Hermes auto-detects using COLORFGBG and terminal background queries. The same sentence says the variable overrides detection on terminals (Ghostty, Warp, iTerm2, and an etc.) that don't set COLORFGBG. It does not name OSC 11. It does not name WezTerm or Kitty. Keep the lists apart.

Leave the variable unset if you want detection. Set it if you want to force the theme.

Neither page says the hex picks light versus dark by luminance. Neither page says light loads a skin. A 6-character hex is accepted as a background hex. That is the whole claim.

The faces are not a skin color

The status-bar busy indicator is a different object. The TUI page says it is pluggable. The default rotates Hermes' kawaii face palette every 2.5 seconds during agent work. The config it prints is:

display:
  tui_status_indicator: kaomoji   # kaomoji | emoji | unicode | ascii

The in-session form it prints is /indicator emoji. The other words are kaomoji, unicode, and ascii. Styles ship with matched glyph widths so the rest of the status bar doesn't jitter on rotation.

Do not send /indicator from a messaging chat. The slash reference lists /indicator [kaomoji|emoji|unicode|ascii] under Interactive CLI slash commands, and the row says CLI-only. The notes on that page put /indicator with /skin, /pet, and /quit as commands that are not messaging commands. I am not reading CLI-only as classic REPL only. The TUI page already prints the in-session form.

The TUI page prints both the config key and the command. It does not say the command writes display.tui_status_indicator. If you want the value in the file, put it in the file.

That key is not a color in the skin. The skins page describes spinner faces as part of a skin. The TUI page's honored-key sentence does not name spinner, and it does not connect the rotating palette to those faces. Use the indicator key for the status bar.

Pick the skin on purpose

A skin still reaches the TUI. The reach is a list, not the env var. The TUI page says the same skins apply. /skin ares repaints live. In the TUI command table, /skin is a live preview as you browse. The honored set, in that sentence, is the banner palette, UI colors, prompt glyph and color, session display, the completion menu, selection bg, tool_prefix, and help_header.

The TUI page points at Skins & Themes for which keys apply to classic versus TUI. I searched the skins page this morning. That column is not there. Use the sentence on the TUI page. Do not invent a matrix the skins page does not print.

There is no TUI-specific config file. The TUI page says the TUI respects ~/.hermes/config.yaml, including skins. The printed block that tunes the TUI surface includes display.skin. The skins page says a change via /skin is session-only. /skin updates the active CLI theme for the current session. The lasting key is display.skin in config.yaml. The page prints it like this:

display:
  skin: default

The comment on the TUI page says that value can be any built-in or custom skin. User skins live under ~/.hermes/skins/ and inherit missing values from the built-in default skin. Unknown skins fall back to default.

On the skins page, default in the Desktop paragraph means the Desktop theme Nous, not a TUI repaint. This stays on the terminal.

If the terminal is bright and you want a skin built for that, the skins page names two. daylight is a light theme for bright terminals: dark slate text, blue borders, pale status surfaces, a light completion menu. warm-lightmode is the warmer one: dark brown text, saddle-brown accents, cream status surfaces. Switch them the way the page switches any built-in. The printed example is /skin ares. daylight is in that built-in table, so the same command takes that name. Set display.skin if you want it to stick. The skins page never mentions HERMES_TUI_THEME. Do not treat that pick as the light-detection result.

Two printed hexes disagree, so copy one and say which block it came from. The key table prints selection_bg as #3a3a55, and says it falls back to completion_menu_current_bg when unset. The full YAML template on the same page prints selection_bg: "#333355". status_bar_bg is the background of the TUI status bar. Both the table and the template print #1a1a2e.

The TUI page says the per-skin status-bar colors and thresholds are shared with the classic CLI, and points at Skins. The skins page prints status_bar_bg. I did not find a threshold key on it. Do not invent one.

Leave customCSS on the GUI

Do not put the TUI look in customCSS. The skins page says it is raw CSS injected into the desktop app and the web dashboard while the skin is active, capped at 32 KiB, and ignored by the CLI and the TUI. The field lives in the skin YAML under ~/.hermes/skins/, so it survives app updates. That is a GUI fact. It is not a TUI fact.

Force the light theme with the env var. Change the faces with the indicator key. Pick a skin when you want a skin.