Theming and output

Output modes

Every command that prints something accepts -o / --output:

Mode	Behaviour
`table` (default)	Styled table using the active theme
`json`	Machine-readable JSON on stdout

deckctl source list -o json
deckctl template list --source work -o json
deckctl template variables go-service --source work -o json
deckctl cache list -o json
deckctl history list -o json
deckctl validate -o json

JSON goes to stdout; warnings, prompts and diagnostics go to stderr, so piping into jq is safe:

deckctl template variables go-service --source work -o json \
  | jq -r '.[] | select(.default == null) | .name'

template apply is the exception: its RENDER / COPY listing and dry-run output are always plain text.

Themes

A theme is a named four-colour palette used to style tables:

Slot	Typical role
`primary`	Table body text
`secondary`	Headers
`accent`	Highlights
`muted`	Borders and de-emphasised text

Themes live in ~/.config/deckctl/themes.yaml:

themes:
  - name: default
    palette:
      primary: "#e0def4"
      secondary: "#9ccfd8"
      accent: "#c4a7e7"
      muted: "#6e6a86"
  - name: solarized
    palette:
      primary: "#93a1a1"
      secondary: "#268bd2"
      accent: "#b58900"
      muted: "#586e75"
active: solarized

If the file doesn’t exist, deckctl uses a built-in default palette.

Managing themes

# Add
deckctl theme add --name solarized \
  --primary "#93a1a1" \
  --secondary "#268bd2" \
  --accent "#b58900" \
  --muted "#586e75"

# Add interactively (prompts for each colour)
deckctl theme add

# Inspect
deckctl theme list
deckctl theme get solarized
deckctl theme active

# Switch
deckctl theme set solarized

# Remove
deckctl theme remove --name solarized
deckctl theme remove --name solarized --auto-approve

Rules

Colours must be hex — #rgb or #rrggbb. Anything else fails validation.
All four slots are required on every theme.
Theme names must be unique.
active must name a theme that exists in the list.

Check a hand-edited file with:

deckctl validate --target themes

Using a different themes file

deckctl theme list --theme ./ci-themes.yaml
DECKCTL_THEME=./ci-themes.yaml deckctl theme list

The --theme flag takes precedence over DECKCTL_THEME, which takes precedence over ~/.config/deckctl/themes.yaml.