Symconf

symconf is a CLI tool for managing local application configuration. It implements a general model that supports dynamically switching/reloading themes for any application, and provides a basic means of templatizing your config files.

Simple example

Below is a simple example demonstrating two system-wide theme switches:

This GIF shows two symconf calls, the first of which applies a gruvbox dark theme and the second a dark monobiome variant. Each call (of the form symconf config -m dark -s style) indicates a dark mode preference and a particular color palette that should be used when populating config file templates. Specifically, in this example, invoking symconf results in the following app-specific config updates:

• GTK: reacts to the mode setting and sets prefer-dark system-wide, changing general GTK-responsive applications like Nautilus and Firefox (and subsequently websites that are responsive to prefers-color-scheme)
• kitty: theme template is re-generated using the specified palette, and kitty processes are sent a message to live-reload the new config file
• neovim: a vim theme file (along with a statusline theme) is generated from the chosen palette, and running instances of neovim are sent a message to re-source this theme (via nvim --remote-send)
• waybar: bar styles are updated to match the mode setting
• sway: the background color and window borders are dynamically set to base palette colors, and swaymsg reload is called
• fzf: a palette-dependent theme is re-generated and re-exported
• rofi: launcher text and highlight colors are set according to the mode and palette, applying on next invocation

This example highlights the generality of symconf, and so long as an app's config can be reloaded dynamically, you can use a single symconf call to apply themes for an arbitrary number of apps at once.

Behavior

symconf uses a simple operational model that symlinks centralized config files to their expected locations across the system. This central config directory can then be version controlled, and app config files can be updated in one place.

App config files can either be concrete (fully-specified) or templates (to be populated by values conditional on style, e.g., a palette). When symconf is executed with a particular mode preference (dark or light) and a style (any other indicator of thematic elements, often simply in the form of a palette like solarized or gruvbox), it searches for both concrete and template config files that match and symlinks them to registered locations. When necessary, symconf will also match and execute scripts to reload apps after updating their configuration.

You can find more details on how symconf's matching scheme works in Matching.

Configuring

Before using, you must first set up your config directory to house your config files and give symconf something to act on. See Configuring for details.

Installation

The recommended way to install symconf is via uv's "tool" subsystem, which is well-suited for managing Python packages meant to be used as CLI programs. With uv on your system, you can install with

uv tool install symconf

Alternatively, you can use pipx to similar effect:

pipx install symconf

You can also install via pip, or clone and install locally.

Usage

• -h --help: print help message
• -c --config-dir: set the location of the symconf config directory
• symconf config is the subcommand used to match and set available config files for registered applications
  • -a --apps: comma-separate list of registered apps, or "*" (default) to consider all registered apps.
  • -m --mode: preferred lightness mode/scheme, either light, dark, any, or none.
  • -s --style: style indicator, often the name of a color palette, capturing thematic details in a config file to be matched. any or none are reserved keywords (see below).
  • -T --template-vars: additional groups to use when populating templates, in the form <group>=<value>, where <group> is a template group with a folder $CONFIG_HOME/groups/<group>/ and <value> should correspond to a TOML file in this folder (i.e., <value>.toml).
• symconf generate is a subcommand that can be used for batch generation of config files. It accepts the same arguments as symconf config, but rather than selecting the best match to be used for the system setting, all matching templates are generated. There is one additional required argument:
  • -o --output-dir: the directory under which generated config files should be written. App-specific subdirectories are created to house config files for each provided app.
• symconf install: runs install scripts for matching apps that specify one
  • -a --apps: comma-separate list of registered apps, or "*" (default) to consider all registered apps.
• symconf update: runs update scripts for matching apps that specify one
  • -a --apps: comma-separate list of registered apps, or "*" (default) to consider all registered apps.

The keywords any and none can be used when specifying --mode, --style, or as a value in --template-vars (and we refer to each of these variables as factors that help determine a config match):

• any will match config files with any value for this factor, preferring config files with a value none, indicating no dependence on the factor. This is the default value when a factor is left unspecified.

• none will match "none" directly for a given factor (so no special behavior), but used to indicate that a config file is independent of the factor. For instance,

  symconf config -m light -s none
  

  will match config files that capture the notion of a light mode, but do not depend on or provide further thematic components such as a color palette.

Examples

• Set a dark mode for all registered apps, matching any available style/palette component:

  symconf config -m dark
  

• Set solarized theme for kitty and match any available mode (light or dark):

  symconf config -s solarized -a kitty
  

• Set a dark gruvbox theme for multiple apps (but not all):

  symconf config -m dark -s gruvbox -apps="kitty,nvim"
  

• Set a dark gruvbox theme for all apps, and attempt to match other template elements:

  symconf config -m dark -s gruvbox -T font=mono window=sharp
  

  which would attempt to find and load key-value pairs in the files $CONFIG_HOME/groups/font/mono.toml and $CONFIG_HOME/groups/window/sharp.toml to be used as values when filling templatized config files.