changecolor

changecolor

Temporarily change the current pane background of Ghostty to a given color. A one-shot paint, not persisted.

Note: when the ghostty-your-turn hooks are enabled, this turn's Stop hook overwrites it with the your-turn color, and the next UserPromptSubmit resets it to the default. So the effect lasts only until you hand the turn back. To permanently change the your-turn color, use update-your-turn-color.

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Steps

Step 1: Decide the color

Take the color from the user's request (e.g. /changecolor #ff0000, /changecolor red).

• #rrggbb form is the most reliable.
• X11 color names (red / steelblue, etc.) also work on OSC 11-capable terminals, but are less reliable.
• Only when no color is given, use AskUserQuestion to offer candidates (the user can pick "Other" for any value).

Step 2: Apply it to the current pane

Replace <COLOR> with the actual value and run it. Claude's Bash child process has no tty, so you must write to the tty resolved from $PPID (writing to /dev/tty directly or printf to stdout will not reach it).

COLOR="<COLOR>"   # e.g. #ff0000 or red
resolve_pane_tty() {
  local pid="$PPID" i=0 t
  while [ "$i" -lt 8 ]; do
    i=$((i + 1))
    t=$(ps -o tty= -p "$pid" 2>/dev/null | tr -d ' ')
    case "$t" in
      "" | "?" | "??") : ;;
      *) printf '/dev/%s\n' "$t"; return 0 ;;
    esac
    pid=$(ps -o ppid= -p "$pid" 2>/dev/null | tr -d ' ')
    { [ -z "$pid" ] || [ "$pid" = "0" ] || [ "$pid" = "1" ]; } && return 1
  done
  return 1
}
if DEV=$(resolve_pane_tty); then
  printf '\033]11;%s\007' "$COLOR" >"$DEV" && echo "Applied: $COLOR -> $DEV"
else
  echo "Could not resolve the tty (e.g. headless). The color was not changed."
fi

Step 3: Report

Report the applied color and add a one-line note that it is temporary (overwritten at the end of the turn when the hooks are enabled). You may also mention that it can be reset immediately to the default with printf '\033]111\007' > <DEV>.

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Notes

• The color uses OSC 11. #rrggbb is recommended.
• Do not modify the config file (color.conf) — this skill does not persist anything.
• Assumes Ghostty. In environments where the tty cannot be resolved, it does nothing.