Themes & Appearance

The exo CLI supports color themes that apply across all commands, the Atlas TUI, and the web UI. Themes adapt automatically to dark and light terminal backgrounds.

Choosing a Theme

Run the interactive theme picker:

exo theme

This shows each available theme with a color preview. Select one to apply it immediately.

Available Themes

Theme	Description
exohub	ExoHub brand gradient — orange, pink, and purple (default)
mono	Black, white, and grayscale — useful for accessibility or low-color terminals

Setting a Theme Non-Interactively

# Set a theme by name
exo theme set mono

# List available themes
exo theme list

# Show the current theme and mode
exo theme show

Dark and Light Mode

Exo auto-detects your terminal background and picks the right color variant. To override:

# Interactive mode picker
exo theme mode

# Set directly
exo theme mode dark
exo theme mode light
exo theme mode auto    # restore auto-detection

How Preferences Are Stored

Theme choices are saved in a YAML preferences file:

Linux: ~/.config/exo/preferences.yaml (or $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/exo/preferences.yaml)
macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/exo/preferences.yaml

Example:

theme: mono
theme_mode: dark
tips_enabled: false   # optional — set to false to disable daily tips

You don’t need to edit this file manually — exo theme commands manage it for you.

Environment Variable Overrides

Environment variables take precedence over the preferences file:

Variable	Description	Values
`EXO_THEME`	Override the active theme	Theme name (e.g., `mono`)
`EXO_THEME_MODE`	Override dark/light mode	`auto`, `dark`, `light`

# Temporarily use the mono theme for one command
EXO_THEME=mono exo info

Resolution order (highest priority first):

EXO_THEME / EXO_THEME_MODE environment variable
Preferences file (preferences.yaml)
Default (exohub theme, auto mode)

Tips of the Day

The exo CLI shows a random tip from the ExoHub tip bank once per day — on your first command of the day. Tips appear briefly in the terminal and don’t interrupt your workflow.

You can also fetch a tip on demand:

exo tip

Opting Out

To disable daily tips, set EXOHUB_TIPS=false in your shell profile:

export EXOHUB_TIPS=false

Or set tips_enabled: false in your preferences file:

tips_enabled: false

Disabling Tips in CI / Server Environments

For non-interactive environments (CI pipelines, containers, servers), use EXOHUB_DISABLE_TIPS=1 instead:

export EXOHUB_DISABLE_TIPS=1

This variable is purely opt-in for disabling — only 1, true, or yes disable tips; any other non-empty value is ignored and falls through to the normal EXOHUB_TIPS / preferences check.

Resolution Order

EXOHUB_DISABLE_TIPS=1|true|yes — disables tips (highest priority; intended for CI)
EXOHUB_TIPS=false|0 — disables; any other non-empty value enables
tips_enabled in preferences file
Default: enabled

Web UI

When using exo atlas in the web browser (via exo serve), the landing page toolbar includes:

A theme dropdown to switch between themes
A mode toggle to switch dark/light mode
Font size buttons (S / M / L) to adjust the terminal font size

Theme and mode selections are passed to the terminal session, so the TUI matches the web UI appearance.

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