ShellShade
The easiest way to discover, preview, and apply terminal color schemes. Hundreds of curated themes for every major terminal emulator.
About ShellShade
ShellShade is a terminal theme manager — a single CLI for browsing, previewing, and applying color schemes across every terminal emulator you use. If you have ever copy-pasted an iTerm2 color file off GitHub, then spent an afternoon trying to port the same theme to Alacritty and Windows Terminal, ShellShade is the tool you wanted that afternoon. Hundreds of curated themes, live preview against your own shell, and a unified apply command that handles the per-terminal translation for you.
The tool started as a dotfile we got tired of rewriting every time someone on the team set up a new machine. Different client engagements meant different environments — macOS iTerm2 one day, Windows Terminal on a Citrix VDI the next, Alacritty on a Linux dev container — and each had its own theme format and its own "how do I live preview this?" friction. ShellShade is the clean-room rewrite of that dotfile, generalized for anyone who switches terminals for any reason.
Written in Go, zero runtime dependencies, single-binary install. Supports iTerm2, Alacritty, Kitty, Windows Terminal, Hyper, GNOME Terminal, Tabby, and more. Import from any major theme repository; export your own themes back out.
What It Does
Browse hundreds of curated color schemes
Live preview before applying
Support for iTerm2, Alacritty, Kitty, Windows Terminal, Hyper, and more
Create and export custom themes
Import themes from popular repositories
Favorite and organize your theme collection
Automatic backup of current theme before changes
Cross-platform CLI with zero dependencies
Key Features
Browse curated theme library
Live theme preview
Multi-terminal support
Custom theme creation
Built With
The technologies powering ShellShade.
Why ShellShade
Honest notes on the closest comparable tools and where ShellShade differs.
Gogh
Excellent Linux-focused terminal theming project. ShellShade targets cross-terminal, cross-OS scope rather than a single family of emulators.
pywal
Generates themes from wallpapers. Different use case (auto-theming from image) from ShellShade's curated-library approach.
iTerm2 built-in theme browser
iTerm2-only. ShellShade is the equivalent abstracted over every terminal, with live preview and a unified apply command.
Manual theme files (dotfile-based)
Free and works. ShellShade is the "I got tired of doing this manually across five terminals" version of that workflow.
Common Questions
Which terminals are supported?
ShellShade supports iTerm2, Alacritty, Kitty, Windows Terminal, Hyper, GNOME Terminal, and more. New terminals are added regularly.
Can I create my own themes?
Yes. ShellShade includes a theme editor that lets you create, preview, and export custom color schemes.
Is ShellShade free?
Yes. ShellShade is completely free and open source.
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Try
ShellShade
Check it out on GitHub, open an issue, or contribute to the project.