Native prompt customization

The NMSh Native prompt is customized along independent axes. None of them is a preset of the others, and each persists separately in config.json.

Modules and surfaces

/prompt manages native modules and their routing to Main Prompt, Right Context, Context Rail or Hidden; Auto uses each module’s preferred surface. Existing saved left/right placement remains valid. The Rail has its own presentation controls and uses the shared native painter. See Context Modules for facts, discovery safety and the distinction between these surfaces.

/shell edits the same shell module’s visibility and Left/Right placement as /prompt. Hidden, When not default and Always control display only; they do not switch shells. Changing Side preserves Hidden. When not default compares the current session backend with the configured default for new sessions.

Styles and their settings

Every style renders the same semantic modules through one cell painter (src/prompt/powerline.ts). That painter supplies Nerd and Safe glyphs, left and right (mirrored) modules, one- and two-line layouts, narrow fitting and historical replay for all styles. /prompt shows only the controls that change the selected style.

Powerline keeps its long-standing storage (the Main Prompt geometry fields plus root gap/spacing), so existing Powerline prompts render exactly as before. Every other style owns a profile under nmsh.styleProfiles.<style>. Missing profiles are seeded from the legacy shared gap and spacing, so an upgraded Soft, Minimal or Outline prompt also renders unchanged. Switching styles never discards another style’s settings. History snapshots record the submitted style’s profile; older snapshots replay with the legacy seed.

Themes and vibrance

The original five themes keep their ids: Lavender Native, Brand / Semantic, Cool First, Warm First and Grayscale. Seven differentiated themes join them: Aurora, Ocean, Sunset, Forest, Rose, Nebula and High Contrast Neon. Each has a complete role map, and text on the newer themes is chosen for at least 4.5:1 contrast.

Vibrance works in OKLCH and always keeps hue. Standard is the identity, so existing appearance is unchanged. Soft quiets chroma and pulls lightness toward the middle. Vibrant raises chroma and spreads lightness so adjacent modules separate. Text is re-chosen whenever a fill moves. Colors already at the gamut edge (neon) are held. Explicit per-module colors and semantic Rich Git colors are never changed by vibrance.

Order of operations

1. Semantic theme role colors
2. Vibrance (theme-derived colors only)
3. Explicit per-module colors (authoritative)
4. Chroma treatment (eligible modules only)
5. Contrast correction: filled text is re-chosen, and text on the terminal background keeps a lightness floor
6. Terminal color-capability degradation (truecolor, 256, 16 or none)

Steps 1–3 happen in renderedModules; steps 4–5 in the renderer; step 6 in colorEscape. Chroma never rewrites stored colors. Turning it Off restores the exact base rendering.

Chroma

Palettes are Off, Lavender, Aurora, Current Theme, Rainbow, Nebula, Black Hole, Warm, Cool, Monochrome and Custom. Each preset is its own palette family: Lavender stays violet, while Aurora sweeps green → cyan → violet → pink. Current Theme derives from the active Native theme, not from generic UI colors. On the prompt it varies each module’s own color in lightness and chroma along the gradient, so Cool First stays cool and Warm First stays warm. On dividers and frames it uses stops taken from the theme’s own module fills.

• Influence (Theme-aware 35%, Mixed 65%, Full 90%) is stored as the existing intensity. The pre-v2 default of 0.65 reads as Mixed and looks unchanged.
• Applies to: Identity modules (project, path and toolchains: the pre-v2 behavior) or Whole prompt. Status segments (success/failure) and Rich Git state segments are always protected.
• Custom module colors: off by default, so explicit colors stay authoritative. This row appears only when a module has explicit colors.
• Surfaces: filled styles treat segment fills and re-choose readable text. Minimal, Outline and Breadcrumb treat text, separators and outlines per column. Ribbon treats text on its band. External Starship/Powerlevel10k prompts and raw PTY output are never treated.
• Custom gradient: 2–8 hex stops edited in /prompt → Chroma → Custom gradient (add, remove, edit, reorder, reset, live preview). Values are validated hex; nothing is evaluated.

Motion

Motion: Static, Travel, Breathe, Comet or Pulse. Speed: Very Slow, Slow, Normal or Fast; Normal keeps the pre-v2 6 s travel and 4 s breathe cycles. Ramp: Linear, Ease In, Ease Out or Ease In-Out. Direction (Forward / Reverse) appears only for Travel and Comet. Geometry (Left → Right, Center → Outward, Outside → Center) is independent.

Reduced Motion and Effects Off always hold a stable static treatment. The live prompt row and the Chroma previews repaint through the shared PresentationClock, and only while an animated treatment is visible. A static treatment adds no wakeups. The one-line (inline) prompt layout shows the static frame.

/prompt and /chroma

/prompt → Main Prompt shows Theme, Style, Vibrance, the style’s own rows, Icons and Modules, plus the theme gallery. /prompt → Chroma and /chroma open the same view and edit the same presentation settings. That view shows a live Current row (your context, saved style, theme, vibrance, modules and icons), a synthetic full-module Showcase row, a gradient swatch, and a palette gallery, all rendered by the real renderer.