A terminal UI application for managing and customizing the Alacritty terminal emulator — safely, intuitively, and beautifully.
Alacritty is one of the fastest and most elegant terminal emulators available on Linux. But configuring it means opening a TOML file in a text editor, knowing exactly what keys and values are valid, and hoping you don't make a mistake that breaks your terminal.
There is no GUI. There is no safety net.
AlacrittyForge exists to change that.
We believe managing your terminal configuration should be:
- Safe — automatic backups before every change, confirmation dialogs before every write
- Clear — every setting explained in plain language, live validation before anything is saved
- Beautiful — a Catppuccin Mocha themed TUI that feels like a proper application
- Accessible — keyboard-driven, fast, and usable by people who just want their terminal to look right
AlacrittyForge was born from a simple frustration: why is configuring one of the best terminal emulators also one of the most unfriendly experiences on Linux? It doesn't have to be.
- 🏠 Dashboard — system overview showing config status, active theme, font, opacity, and backup count
- 🔧 Config Editor — browse and edit all Alacritty settings with descriptions and live validation
- 🎨 Theme Browser — browse locally installed color themes, preview color palettes, apply with one key, and get guided help on installing new themes
- 🔤 Font Manager — view and edit all font settings including family, style, size, spacing, and offsets — with a live list of system fonts
- ⌨ Key Bindings — view all default and user-defined bindings, add custom bindings, delete user bindings
- 🗂 Backup & Restore — timestamped backups created automatically before every change, stored in
~/.config/alacritty/backups/
Screenshots coming in v0.2.0
- Linux
- Python 3.11 or newer
- Alacritty installed and configured
python-textual,python-rich,python-tomli-w
sudo pacman -S python-textual python-rich python-tomli-w
git clone https://github.com/jetomev/alacrittyforge.git
cd alacrittyforgepip install textual rich tomli-w
git clone https://github.com/jetomev/alacrittyforge.git
cd alacrittyforgecd alacrittyforge
python main.pyNo
sudorequired — AlacrittyForge writes only to your user config at~/.config/alacritty/alacritty.tomland backups at~/.config/alacritty/backups/.
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
1 |
Dashboard |
2 |
Config Editor |
3 |
Theme Browser |
4 |
Font Manager |
5 |
Key Bindings |
? |
Help |
q |
Quit |
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
E |
Edit selected value |
S |
Save all pending changes |
R |
Refresh from disk |
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
A |
Apply selected theme |
F5 |
Refresh theme list |
H |
Toggle installation help guide |
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
E |
Edit selected value |
S |
Save all pending changes |
R |
Refresh from disk |
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
N |
Add new binding |
D |
Delete selected binding |
R |
Refresh |
alacrittyforge/
├── main.py # Entry point
├── alacrittyforge/
│ ├── app.py # Main Textual application shell
│ ├── config_manager.py # TOML config parser, writer, validator
│ ├── backup_manager.py # Backup create, list, restore, delete
│ ├── theme_manager.py # Theme scanner, color extractor, applier
│ ├── font_manager.py # Font settings reader and writer
│ ├── keybind_manager.py # Keybinding reader, writer, defaults
│ ├── alacrittyforge.css # Catppuccin Mocha stylesheet
│ ├── screens/
│ │ ├── dashboard.py # System overview screen
│ │ ├── config_editor.py # Config editor screen
│ │ ├── themes.py # Theme browser screen
│ │ ├── fonts.py # Font manager screen
│ │ └── keybindings.py # Key bindings screen
│ └── widgets/
│ └── confirm_dialog.py # Reusable confirmation dialog
AlacrittyForge is built around one principle: never silently modify your config.
Every change goes through three layers of protection:
- Validation — input is checked before it is staged
- Confirmation — a dialog asks you to confirm before anything is written
- Backup — a timestamped backup of your current config is created automatically before every write
Backups are stored in ~/.config/alacritty/backups/ and kept up to a maximum of 20.
- Dashboard with config overview
- Config editor with live validation
- Theme browser with color palette preview
- Font manager with system font listing
- Key bindings viewer and editor
- Automatic timestamped backups
- Dropdown selectors for settings with fixed options (decorations, cursor shape, startup mode, etc.)
- Scrollable font picker from system fonts list
- Color picker for hex color fields
- Screenshots in README
- Backup restore screen
- AUR package
- Live preview of font changes
- Import/export config profiles
First Alpha Release
- 🏠 Dashboard with system overview
- 🔧 Config Editor with live validation
- 🎨 Theme Browser with color palette preview and installation guide
- 🔤 Font Manager with system font listing
- ⌨ Key Bindings viewer, adder, and deleter
- 🗂 Automatic timestamped backups before every change
- 🌙 Catppuccin Mocha theme throughout
jetomev — idea, vision, direction, testing
Claude (Anthropic) — co-developer, architecture, implementation
This project was built as a collaboration between a human with a great idea and an AI that helped bring it to life — one command at a time.
AlacrittyForge is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License v3.0 as published by the Free Software Foundation.
See LICENSE for the full license text.
Contributions are welcome! Please open an issue or pull request on GitHub.
If you find AlacrittyForge useful, consider starring the repository — it helps others find it.