Five themes, and the day that picks them

The day

Without a location the bands are clock hours. With one — location = [35.68, 139.69] in the config — they follow the sun: civil dawn to sunrise is the dawn, then three hours of morning, the day until an hour before sunset, dusk until an hour past civil dusk, and the rest is night. A sun that never rises leaves the whole day night; one that never sets leaves none of it.

The clock's bands. The line is your now.

東雲 shinonome — the clouds of the east at first light

The hour before sunrise. Dark still, but the black has warmed to 黒紅 and the accents are the dawn's own — 曙 peach, 珊瑚 coral, 藤鼠 wisteria grey. Night hands over to it dark to dark, so nothing flashes.

The real client at this hour (wagahai --demo --at …). Wear shinonome on this page →

The palette

生成り kinari — unbleached cloth

The morning. Warm paper, 消炭 charcoal ink, 朱 vermilion for the one bright thing. For its first half hour it opens tinted toward 桜色 and settles to its own cream — the day's one step from dark to light lands rosy.

The real client at this hour (wagahai --demo --at …). Wear kinari on this page →

The palette

月白 geppaku — moon white

The day. A cool ground with 紺 navy ink and 紅 crimson. The working hours: the most contrast, the least warmth.

The real client at this hour (wagahai --demo --at …). Wear geppaku on this page →

The palette

褐 kachi — the samurai's victory indigo

Dusk and twilight. Deep indigo with 山吹 gold and 薄紅 pink — the sky an hour either side of sunset.

The real client at this hour (wagahai --demo --at …). Wear kachi on this page →

The palette

濡羽 nureba — a wet crow's wing

The night. Lacquer black, 紫水晶 amethyst ink, 柑子 orange as the one bright accent, 勿忘草 forget-me-not for links.

The real client at this hour (wagahai --demo --at …). Wear nureba on this page →

The palette

The drift, and the blush

Inside a band the ground is not quite still. bg and surface take a trace of amber at the edges of the day and a trace of blue at noon — at most three levels of the 255 either way, a tenth of one in the minute that carries it, so no frame ever shows the change. The ink, the accents and every checked contrast do not move.

The morning gets one thing more. The step from the dawn's dark to the morning's paper is the only place the day goes from dark to light, and a cut from black to cream at sunrise is a flashbulb. A crossfade can't fix that honestly — halfway between a dark theme and a light one, text and ground are both grey. So the dawn is its own dark theme, and kinari opens blushed: tinted halfway toward 桜色 sakura-iro at sunrise, settling to its own cream over thirty minutes.

Halfway to 桜色 is as far as it goes — all the way would take the secondary text under its contrast minimum.

The contract

A theme ships only if it passes a contrast contract, checked at rest, at its warmest, at its coolest, and — for the morning — in its first blushed minute. wagahai theme-check runs all twenty.

Passing is necessary and not enough. The first shinonome passed every line and still read as fog: its ground was a mid-dark mauve, and greys sank into it. The numbers said fine; a screenshot beside the night theme said otherwise. It was deepened until it was as dark as the night it follows, and body text went from 11 : 1 to 14 : 1.

Using them

# ~/.config/wagahai/config.toml
theme = "auto"                  # the default: the day picks
location = [35.68, 139.69]      # optional: the sun's bands instead of the clock's
# theme = "nureba"              # or pin one, exactly as its file has it

In the client, :theme kachi switches for the session and :theme auto hands it back to the day; 1–5 pin nureba, kachi, kinari, geppaku, shinonome. A theme is a TOML file of fourteen colours — put your own in ~/.config/wagahai/themes/ and it is a first-class citizen, held to the same contract.