Skip to content

Instantly share code, notes, and snippets.

Show Gist options
  • Save aasutossh/ffbe528db3d2bcb61b2ecee2e9750de5 to your computer and use it in GitHub Desktop.
Save aasutossh/ffbe528db3d2bcb61b2ecee2e9750de5 to your computer and use it in GitHub Desktop.
True Color (24-bit) and italics with alacritty + tmux + vim (neovim)

This should make True Color (24-bit) and italics work in your tmux session and vim/neovim when using Alacritty (and should be compatible with any other terminal emulator, including Kitty).

Notes

  1. Don't set $TERM in your shell (zshrc, bashrc, etc.). Configure this in your terminal (alacritty).
  2. Alacritty has no undercurl support, even though tmux has

Testing colors

Running this script should look the same in tmux as without.

curl -s https://gist.github.com/lifepillar/09a44b8cf0f9397465614e622979107f/raw/24-bit-color.sh >24-bit-color.sh
bash 24-bit-color.sh

colors

Configuration files

Alacritty

In ~/.config/alacritty/alacritty.yml:

env:
  TERM: xterm-256color

tmux

In ~/.tmux.conf (or ~/.config/tmux/tmux.conf):

set -g default-terminal "tmux-256color"
set -ag terminal-overrides ",xterm-256color:RGB"

vim

In ~/.vimrc:

" You might have to force true color when using regular vim inside tmux as the
" colorscheme can appear to be grayscale with "termguicolors" option enabled.
if !has('gui_running') && &term =~ '^\%(screen\|tmux\)'
  let &t_8f = "\<Esc>[38;2;%lu;%lu;%lum"
  let &t_8b = "\<Esc>[48;2;%lu;%lu;%lum"
endif

syntax on
set termguicolors
colorscheme yourfavcolorscheme

neovim

If you use ~/.vimrc for your nvim configuration, use the above vim example becaus it's fully compatible (nvim ignores the workarounds for vim).

In ~/.config/nvim/init.vim

set termguicolors
colorscheme yourfavcolorscheme

Or ~/.config/nvim/init.lua:

vim.o.termguicolors = true
vim.cmd'colorscheme yourfavcolorscheme'

Not working correctly ?

Check out the comments below for possible solutions.

And if you found another solution I would really appreciate if you left a comment with instructions and the following information:

  • OS/Distro + version
  • Vim or Neovim + version
  • Terminal name + version
Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment