Slatewave (tmux)

August 4, 2026 · View on GitHub

Slatewave (tmux)

A Slatewave status bar and pane styling for tmux — slate foundation, teal signature. Part of the Slatewave family — one palette across editors, terminals, prompts, notes, and more.

Slate below, teal above.

Layout

One status line, three zones — the session on the left, your window list in the middle, prefix/date/time on the right:

  session   1:editor  2:server    3:logs                              PREFIX    Wed Apr 22   3:04 PM

Left: session name in a teal pill
Middle: window list — inactive windows muted, the current window lifted into a chrome pill with teal text
Right: prefix indicator (rose, only while the prefix key is held) → date → 12-hour clock

Copy mode, the command prompt, pane borders, menus, popups, and the built-in clock all share the same palette.

Requirements

tmux ≥ 3.2 (for copy-mode-match-style, popup-style, and modern #{?} formatting)
A Nerd Font (or other powerline-capable font) for the / pill transitions. Tested with MesloLGS NF and Hack Nerd Font. Plain powerline fonts work too.
A terminal with true-color support (iTerm2, Ghostty, Alacritty, WezTerm, Kitty, …). tmux itself needs Tc or RGB in its terminal-overrides — see Troubleshooting if colors look off.

Installation

Option 1 — `source-file` in `~/.tmux.conf`

git clone https://github.com/kevinlangleyjr/tmux-slatewave.git \
  ~/.config/tmux/slatewave

Then in ~/.tmux.conf:

source-file ~/.config/tmux/slatewave/slatewave.tmux.conf

Reload tmux (tmux source-file ~/.tmux.conf or prefix + r if bound) — the theme applies immediately.

Option 2 — TPM

If you use the tmux plugin manager, add:

set -g @plugin 'kevinlangleyjr/tmux-slatewave'

to ~/.tmux.conf, then prefix + I to fetch and load.

Option 3 — copy into an existing config

slatewave.tmux.conf is a plain set of set -g lines. Copy the whole file, or just the blocks you want, into your existing ~/.tmux.conf. Every section is commented with the palette values it uses, so partial adoption is safe.

Palette

Slatewave shares its palette with the companion themes. tmux has no variable mechanism in config files, so the hex values are inlined throughout slatewave.tmux.conf — but every color maps to a semantic slot:

Backgrounds

Hex	Palette	Used by
`#0f172a`	`bg_inset`	text on teal / rose pills
`#1e293b`	`bg_elevated`	status bar bg, messages, menus, popups
`#21252b`	`bg_raised`	reserved
`#282c34`	`bg_base`	reserved
`#2c313a`	`chrome_dark`	clock pill bg
`#3e4451`	`chrome_light`	active-window pill bg, date pill bg, inactive pane border

Foregrounds

Hex	Palette	Used by
`#64748b`	`fg_faint`	reserved
`#94a3b8`	`fg_muted`	inactive window text, display-panes
`#cbd5e1`	`fg_subtle`	last-window indicator
`#e2e8f0`	`fg_default`	bar baseline, date text
`#f1f5f9`	`fg_bright`	reserved

Accent

Hex	Palette	Used by
`#5eead4`	`teal_300`	session pill, active window, clock, active pane border, selection, clock-mode
`#99f6e4`	`teal_200`	reserved
`#0f766e`	`teal_600`	reserved
`#0e7490`	`teal_700`	reserved
`#ecfeff`	`cyan_fg`	reserved

State

Hex	Palette	Meaning
`#38bdf8`	`sky_400`	window activity indicator, copy-mode match
`#fb7185`	`rose_400`	prefix-active indicator
`#ef5350`	`red_bright`	reserved
`#b388ff`	`purple`	reserved
`#fcd34d`	`amber_300`	window bell, copy-mode mark
`#f59e0b`	`amber_500`	warning background (reserved)
`#ff4500`	`orange`	reserved
`#193549`	`git_ink`	reserved

What the theme sets

Surface	Style
`status-style` (bar bg)	`fg_default` on `bg_elevated`
`status-left`	`#S` — `bg_inset` on `teal_300`, bold
`window-status-format`	`#I:#W#F` — `fg_muted` on `bg_elevated`
`window-status-current-format`	`#I:#W#F` — `teal_300` on `chrome_light`, bold
`window-status-bell-style`	`amber_300` on `bg_elevated`, bold
`window-status-activity-style`	`sky_400` on `bg_elevated`
`window-status-last-style`	`fg_subtle` on `bg_elevated`
`status-right` prefix indicator	`PREFIX` — `bg_inset` on `rose_400`, bold (only while prefix held)
`status-right` date	`%a %b %-d` — `fg_default` on `chrome_light`
`status-right` time	`%-I:%M %p` — `teal_300` on `chrome_dark`
`pane-border-style`	`chrome_light`
`pane-active-border-style`	`teal_300`
`message-style`	`teal_300` on `bg_elevated`
`mode-style` (copy / selection)	`bg_inset` on `teal_300`
`copy-mode-match-style`	`bg_inset` on `sky_400`
`copy-mode-current-match-style`	`bg_inset` on `teal_300`, bold
`copy-mode-mark-style`	`bg_inset` on `amber_300`
`display-panes-active-colour`	`teal_300`
`clock-mode-colour`	`teal_300` (12-hour)
`menu-selected-style`	`bg_inset` on `teal_300`, bold
`popup-border-style`	`chrome_light`, rounded lines

Customize

The theme file is a plain tmux config — every line is a set -g. Edit slatewave.tmux.conf in place, or copy the blocks you want into your own ~/.tmux.conf after the source-file line so your overrides win.

Common edits:

24-hour clock — change %-I:%M %p to %H:%M in status-right, and set clock-mode-style 24
Status bar on top — set -g status-position top
Show hostname — append @#h (or #H for FQDN) to status-left, or splice it into status-right before the date
Drop powerline glyphs (no Nerd Font) — delete the #[fg=#5eead4,bg=#1e293b,nobold] transitions and the / chars; the theme falls back to flat pills
Name pane titles — flip pane-border-status off to pane-border-status top (or bottom); pane-border-format is already Slatewave-styled
Slower status refresh — bump status-interval 5 (e.g. 15 for less CPU on laptops)
Different window numbering — combine with set -g base-index 1 and set -g renumber-windows on in your own config; the theme renders whatever tmux provides

Troubleshooting

Colors look washed out / wrong. Your outer terminal supports truecolor but tmux isn't being told. Add this to ~/.tmux.conf before sourcing the theme:

set -g default-terminal "tmux-256color"
set -as terminal-features ",xterm-256color:RGB"
set -as terminal-features ",alacritty:RGB"
set -as terminal-features ",ghostty:RGB"

Pill arrows render as boxes or question marks. Install a Nerd Font in your terminal and set it as the active font. nerdfonts.com has downloads; the Slatewave sibling themes are all tested with MesloLGS NF.

Status bar reads "can't find format 'client_prefix'" or similar. You're on tmux < 3.2. Upgrade (brew install tmux, apt install tmux, …).

Slatewave family

One palette. Every tool.

Editors — VSCode · JetBrains · Xcode · Sublime Text · Zed · Neovim · NvChad · Helix
Terminals — Alacritty · Ghostty · iTerm2 · kitty · Warp · WezTerm · Windows Terminal
Prompts — Oh My Posh · Powerlevel10k · Starship
CLI — bat · delta · LSD · btop
Notes — Obsidian · Logseq · MarkEdit · Anytype
Launchers — Alfred · Raycast
Chat — Slack

See getslatewave.com for the full family.

Contributing

Issues and PRs welcome. For palette or layout changes, include a before/after screenshot of the status bar in three states: idle, prefix held, and with split panes (so the active vs inactive pane border is visible).

License

WTFPL — Do What The Fuck You Want To Public License. See LICENSE.