Colors

How every color hi paints is chosen: the per-host hash, the pins in ~/.config/say-hi/colors, the 24-bit scheme, and the package check’s ramp and rows. The two settings here, _HI_COLOR_SCHEME and _HI_PACKAGES_PALETTE, are rows in SETTINGS.md; the wizard asks about neither.

Contents

• The package check’s ramp
• The package check’s rows
• Using the hash in your own prompt

Every username and hostname resolves to a color derived from its own name, so an unpinned host looks the same from every machine you say hi from. Pin the ones that matter in ~/.config/say-hi/colors, which is TOML: a [type] line opens a table, and each row under it is name = "color", on one line. A name that is not letters, digits, _ and - alone goes in double quotes.

[username]
root = "red b00020"

[hostname]
bastion = "yellow"
"10.0.1.*" = "red"

[hosttag]
prod = "red"

[usertag]
prod = "red"

A hosttag row colors every host carrying a # Tags: prod comment above its Host or Match host line in ~/.ssh/config — a wildcard block (Host prod-*) colors every name it covers. hi --add-tag <host> <tag> writes that comment for you, replacing a tag already there; given a name only a wildcard block covers, it names the block to tag instead. A usertag row colors the username on every host that carries that tag, so you@prod-db reads as prod on both halves. A hostname name holding * or ? is a pattern: 10.0.1.* or *.prod.example.com colors a whole subnet or domain at once, no ssh-config entry needed — the first matching pattern in the file wins. Precedence, highest first: an exact pin, then a hosttag, then a pattern, then the hash.

hi --set-color <type> <name> <color> [rrggbb] writes a pin, replacing one the name already has and creating the section when the file has none; hi --unset-color <type> <name> removes it. Both refuse a name holding a space, #, or a bracket, a color outside the vocabulary below, and a hex that is not six digits. The first write copies the tree’s file there, since a copy of your own replaces the tree’s wholesale.

A config split into files (Include config.d/* in ~/.ssh/config) is read the way ssh reads it: each Include is followed in place - ~ is your home, a relative path is under ~/.ssh, globs expand in sorted order, nested Includes too - so a host and its # Tags: line that live in ~/.ssh/config.d/01-work complete, color, and ride like any other.

Tags follow you past the first hop. A hi typed inside a session runs on a box whose ~/.ssh/config has none of your # Tags: lines, so the tagged Host and Match host lines of yours - those two lines of each block and nothing else, no HostName, no User, no untagged host - ride the overlay as ssh_tags, and the middle box reads them wherever its own config has no tag for the name. The host is matched as you type it there, against the patterns you wrote here. hi --doctor says when the member rides; like colors, it names hosts to every target you visit, so an empty ssh_tags of your own in ~/.config/say-hi/ is how to keep them home.

hi --preview colors shows every host in your ssh config and every user it knows of, drawn in the colors themselves, each row naming the rule it matched (hash for one nothing pins):

Any of those strings takes an optional second word, that pin’s own 24-bit color as six hex digits (a leading # is fine; text after it is ignored): prod-db = "brred ff5f5f" under [hostname] renders prod-db in exactly that red on a truecolor terminal. The first word is still a name from the vocabulary below and is what a 16-color terminal gets, so name the nearest one. The hex outranks _HI_COLOR_SCHEME for that one pin — the scheme says what a name renders as, the hex what this host or user renders as — and anything that is not six hex digits is ignored.

The vocabulary is twenty-four names: the terminal’s twelve (red, green, yellow, blue, magenta, cyan, and their br forms) and twelve more - orange, pink, teal, lime, violet, salmon, gold, sky, indigo, mint, peach, lavender - that a pin may name and the hash lands on as readily as the first twelve. A pin, the hash, and hi --preview colors never see anything else. What each name renders as is _HI_COLOR_SCHEME’s: unset, the terminal’s own sixteen colors for the first twelve and a built-in 24-bit color for each extra; set, that list’s hex for every name. Each is emitted as one escape carrying a 16-color code first and the 24-bit color after it, so a terminal that ignores the second keeps the first - an extra name’s 16-color half is the nearest of the sixteen (orange reads as bright yellow there, teal as cyan).

The 24-bit half paints everything hi paints - the prompt, the header’s cells and packages check, the git segment - and only on a terminal that says it can: COLORTERM set to truecolor or 24bit, which hi reads on the client and ships to the session as _HI_TRUECOLOR (ssh drops COLORTERM itself). Inside tmux, or on a terminal that renders 24-bit color without announcing it, export _HI_TRUECOLOR=1 in settings.sh forces it; 0 refuses it. zsh takes the hex from 5.7 on and keeps the plain name below that; macOS Terminal.app never sets COLORTERM and so keeps its own sixteen.

hi ships no named schemes: the scheme is the setting — twenty-four six-digit hex words, one space apart, in the order of the names above (red, green, yellow, blue, magenta, cyan, the six bright ones, then the twelve extras), or forty-eight, whose second twenty-four paint only the package check, so a missing core tool can shout in a different red from the one your prompt wears. Write it into settings.sh by hand — it ships to every target, so a scheme follows you:

export _HI_COLOR_SCHEME='f38ba8 a6e3a1 f9e2af 89b4fa f5c2e7 94e2d5 f37799 89d88b ebd391 74a8fc f2aede 6bd7ca fab387 f2cdcd 81c8be c3e88d cba6f7 eba0ac e5c890 89dceb 7287fd 8be9b0 f5a97f b4befe'

The quotes matter (the value holds spaces, and fish sources the file too). Anything that is not exactly 24 or 48 hex words renders as the default and hi --doctor says so. hi --preview colors and hi --preview packages judge a scheme, labelling it custom (24), custom (48), or (ignored - not a scheme).

The package check’s ramp

_HI_PACKAGES_PALETTE is the same idea one level down: which of the twenty-four names the header’s package check paints each tier in. It is eight of those names, one space apart — four for installed, rising 0→3, then four for missing:

export _HI_PACKAGES_PALETTE='cyan green brcyan brgreen blue magenta bryellow brred'

That line is the shipped ramp, so writing it changes nothing. A ramp reads best when both halves climb in one direction — a missing core tool the loudest thing on screen, installed trivia the quietest — and stay legible on light and dark terminals alike. Anything that is not eight names from the vocabulary falls back to the shipped ramp, hi --doctor says so, and hi --preview packages labels the line default, custom, or (ignored - not eight color names).

The package check’s rows

The check reads one file, config/packages, which is TOML: a table per group, and a row per tool, its value the alternatives in order of preference, on one line. The shipped file is short; packages.example is a longer one, with extras, trivia, and platform groups, to copy to ~/.config/say-hi/packages.

[useful]
curl = ["httpie", "xh"]
rsync = []

[useful.required]
sudo = ["doas"]

[deprecated.unwanted]
exa = []

The first name installed is shown, marked ~ when it is not the row’s own. The table a row sits under sets what the row is for:

• [group], wanted: installed (✓) and missing (✗) both show.
• [group.unwanted]: silent while absent, a warning (!) when installed — the deprecated group’s exa, neofetch, python2, and xsv.
• [group.required]: silent while installed, an alarm (✗) when missing — the base group’s coreutils.

hi reads that much of TOML and no more: a value on a second line, a string in single quotes, or an inline table is a row it skips, and hi --doctor says so of a file still in an older format.

Warnings and alarms sort first and paint in the loudest missing color. Every other row paints in its group’s tier of the ramp above; there is no per-row color:

tier	groups
3	core, base, deprecated
2	useful
1	extras, and any group of your own naming
0	trivia, platform

_HI_PACKAGES_GROUPS names the groups that run, space- or comma-separated, or none; unset, it is core useful deprecated (SETTINGS.md). A group that is off is not even looked for, and rows above the first table always run.

hi --add-package core go cargo,rustc adds rows to that group’s table of ~/.config/say-hi/packages, creating the table when the file has none, and a leading + or - on an argument (+sudo,doas) lands its row in the group’s .required or .unwanted table; a row whose first package is already in the file is replaced, and moved when the group differs. hi --remove-package go cargo takes out the row whose first package each one names, from whichever table holds it. The first write of either copies the tree’s file there: a copy of your own replaces the tree’s wholesale, the same rule colors follows. By hand, cp "$_HI_ROOT/config/packages" ~/.config/say-hi/packages and edit. hi --preview packages shows each group — whether it runs, its colors, and a real example from your rows — then the marks and the check; to turn the check off, drop check from _HI_HEADER_ORDER. A copy never gains a group the tree adds later, so the preview and hi --doctor name the tree’s groups your file lacks, and any row with a - or + past its first name (eza,-exa,lsd), which is read as part of a name nothing matches.

Using the hash in your own prompt

_HI_DISABLE_PROMPT=1 turns off hi’s own user@host prompt; the per-host color hashing is still resolved, into variables for your own bashrc or zshrc (sourced at the end of hi’s, above) to use:

• $_HI_HOST_ESC/$_HI_USER_ESC — the raw ANSI escape, for a bash PS1 to embed directly (wrap it in \[ \] so readline doesn’t count its width): PS1="\[$_HI_HOST_ESC\]\h\[$NC\] \w ".
• $_HI_HOST_COLOR/$_HI_USER_COLOR — the color by name, for zsh’s own %F{}: PS1='%F{$_HI_HOST_COLOR}%m%f %~ '. One of the twelve extras is not a name %F{} knows: _hi_color_base b "$_HI_HOST_COLOR" gives the sixteen-color name behind it, and _hi_color_hex h "$_HI_HOST_COLOR" the hex for %F{#$h}.
• fish needs neither: common/config.fish sets $fish_color_host/$fish_color_user unconditionally, for set_color $fish_color_host in your own fish_prompt.

Each shell resolves them once at startup, so a change to the color pins shows from the next shell on.