TCA Rust

Terminal Colors Architecture (TCA) for Rust: consistent, user-configurable theming for terminal applications.

For Developers

Add one line to your app and get beautiful theming with zero configuration:

let theme = TcaTheme::default();

Your app immediately works with 11 built-in themes and any theme the user installs. You don't have to ship themes or write config parsers - TCA handles it.

// Use resolved colors directly in ratatui
let style = Style::default()
    .fg(theme.ui.fg_primary)
    .bg(theme.ui.bg_primary);

let error_style = Style::default().fg(theme.semantic.error);
let border_style = Style::default().fg(theme.ui.border_primary);

For Users

Drop any .toml theme file into ~/.local/share/tca-themes/ and it becomes available to every TCA-powered app on the system with no per-app configuration needed.

# Install a theme from the tca-themes collection
cp tokyo-night.toml ~/.local/share/tca-themes/

# Your app picks it up automatically
myapp --theme tokyo-night

Browse available themes at tca-themes.

How Theme Resolution Works

TcaTheme::new(Some("name")) tries each step in order, falling back gracefully:

1. User theme files - searches ~/.local/share/tca-themes/<name>.toml, or accepts an exact file path
2. Built-in themes - catppuccin-mocha, cyberpunk, dracula, everforest-dark, gruvbox-dark, mono, nord, one-dark, rose-pine, solarized-light, tokyo-night
3. User preference - reads ~/.config/tca/tca.toml for a configured default
4. Auto-detect - picks a dark or light built-in based on the terminal's background color

Passing None skips steps 1-2 and goes straight to the user's preference or auto-detection.

Packages

Crate	Purpose
tca-ratatui	Ratatui integration - TcaTheme, widgets
tca-types	Core TOML types and color resolution
tca-cli	CLI — validate, export, list

Getting Started

[dependencies]
tca-ratatui = "0.4"

use tca_ratatui::TcaTheme;
use ratatui::style::Style;

let theme = TcaTheme::new(None);

That's it. See tca-ratatui for the full guide.

Development

cargo build --workspace
cargo test --workspace
cargo clippy --workspace

Related

• tca-themes - community theme collection
• tca-go - Go implementation
• tca-python - Python implementation

License

MIT