Synesthesia

Sense your projects as terminal colours

Synesthesia updates your terminal tab and background colours depending on the go module name in your directory ancestry.

• iTerm2: Automatically updates the tab colour.
• Ghostty & Others: Lightly tints the terminal background (enabled by default).

If you use git worktrees (or jj workspaces), then each copy of the same project will have a different but consistent colour.

Installation

1. Install from source using golang 1.25

go install github.com/roryq/synesthesia@latest

2. Configure a hook for your shell

fish

Add the following line to your ~/.config/fish/config.fish:

synesthesia hook fish | source

zsh

Add the following line to your ~/.zshrc:

eval "$(synesthesia hook zsh)"

Usage

Navigate between your directories as usual. When you have multiple tabs open for different projects, a consistent random colour will be chosen for any tabs with the same project name.

Sense Custom Text

You can sense a colour for any custom string (useful for agent names or specific project labels):

synesthesia sense "my-project-label"

Background Tinting

Background tinting is enabled by default. To disable it, use the --no-background-tint flag:

synesthesia --no-background-tint

To generate a hook with tinting disabled:

synesthesia hook zsh --no-background-tint

License

MIT