Terminal Color

The user wants to change Ralph's terminal background tint - the color applied during

npx agentic-loop run

to visually distinguish Ralph's terminal from Claude Code.

Note: This only works in macOS Terminal.app. On other terminals (iTerm2, VS Code, Linux), Ralph skips tinting automatically.

Step 1: Show Current Color

Read

.ralph/config.json

and check for

terminalTint

. Show the current setting:

• If set: "Current tint:

  {value}

  "
• If not set: "Current tint:

  #1a1a2e

  (default dark navy)"

Step 2: Ask Color Preference

Use AskUserQuestion:

Question: "What color should Ralph's terminal background be?" Header: "Tint color" Options:

• Dark Navy (default) - "

  #1a1a2e

  - cool and distinct, easy on the eyes"
• Dark Teal - "

  #1a2e2e

  - subtle blue-green undertone"
• Dark Red - "

  #2e1a1a

  - warm undertone, clearly different"
• Off - "Disable terminal tinting entirely"

If the user selects "Other", ask them to provide a hex color (e.g.,

#2e2e1a

).

Step 3: Validate (if custom hex)

If the user provided a custom hex:

• Must match

  #

  followed by exactly 6 hex characters (

  /^#[0-9a-fA-F]{6}$/

  )
• If invalid, say "That doesn't look like a valid hex color (e.g.,

  #1a1a2e

  ). Try again." and re-ask.

Step 4: Save to Config

Read

.ralph/config.json

, set the

terminalTint

field, and write it back.

• If a color was chosen: Set

  "terminalTint": "#xxxxxx"

• If "Off" was chosen: Set

  "terminalTint": "off"

Use jq to update:

jq --arg color "THE_HEX_VALUE" '.terminalTint = $color' .ralph/config.json > .ralph/config.json.tmp && mv .ralph/config.json.tmp .ralph/config.json

Step 5: Preview (macOS Terminal.app only)

If running in Terminal.app, apply the color immediately so the user can see it:

# Apply preview (will be restored when Claude session ends)
osascript -e 'tell application "Terminal" to set background color of front window to {R, G, B}' 2>/dev/null

Where R, G, B are the hex values converted to 16-bit (multiply each 8-bit value by 257).

If "Off" was chosen, skip the preview.

Step 6: Confirm

Say:

"Done! Ralph will use

#xxxxxx

as the terminal tint.

Next time you run

npx agentic-loop run

, the terminal background will change to this color. It restores to your original background when the loop ends.

Run

/color

again anytime to change it."

If "Off" was chosen, say:

"Done! Terminal tinting is now disabled. Ralph will run without changing your terminal background."