A dynamic theme updater for COSMIC Desktop Environment that automatically syncs your desktop theme with pywal-generated color schemes.

cosmic-wal bridges the gap between pywal's automatic wallpaper color extraction and COSMIC DE's theming system. It monitors pywal's color output and automatically updates your COSMIC theme to match your wallpaper colors, creating a cohesive and dynamic desktop experience.

• 🎨 Automatic Theme Syncing: Monitors pywal color changes and updates COSMIC theme in real-time
• ⚙️ Configurable Color Mapping: Customize which pywal colors are used for different theme elements
• 🔄 Multiple Operation Modes: One-time refresh or continuous daemon mode
• 📁 Smart Configuration: Auto-generates default config if none exists
• 🌓 Theme Mode Aware: Works with both dark and light COSMIC themes

• COSMIC Desktop Environment
• pywal (or wallust/any tool that generates ~/.cache/wal/colors.json or any equivalent)
• Rust toolchain (for building from source)

git clone https://github.com/yourusername/cosmic-wal.git
cd cosmic-wal
cargo build --release
sudo cp target/release/cosmic-wal /usr/local/bin/

Update your COSMIC theme once based on current pywal colors:

cosmic-wal --refresh

Start the daemon to automatically update themes when pywal colors change:

cosmic-wal --daemon

cosmic-wal --help

cosmic-wal uses a TOML configuration file located at ~/.config/cosmic-wal/config.toml. If this file doesn't exist, it will be automatically created with default values on first run.

[colors]
accent_color = "color13"
success_color = "color12"
warning_color = "color14"
destructive_color = "color11"
bg_color = "background"
primary_container_color = "color1"
neutral_tint_color = "color9"
text_tint_color = "foreground"

To customize which pywal colors are used for different theme elements, edit the config file:

[colors]
# Use a different color for accent
accent_color = "color5"

# Use the wallpaper's background for containers
primary_container_color = "background"

# Disable a color mapping by setting to null (uses fallback)
warning_color = null

1. Use pywal to generate colors from your wallpaper:

   wal -i /path/to/your/wallpaper.jpg

2. Run cosmic-wal to update your COSMIC theme:

   cosmic-wal --refresh

3. Or start the daemon for automatic updates:

   cosmic-wal --daemon

To automatically start cosmic-wal when your session begins, add it to your startup applications or create a systemd user service:

Create ~/.config/systemd/user/cosmic-wal.service:

[Unit]
Description=Cosmic WAL Theme Updater
After=graphical-session.target

[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/cosmic-wal --daemon
Restart=always
RestartSec=5

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

Enable and start the service:

systemctl --user enable cosmic-wal.service
systemctl --user start cosmic-wal.service

• Colors Input: ~/.cache/wal/colors.json (pywal output)
• Configuration: ~/.config/cosmic-wal/config.toml
• COSMIC Theme Files: Managed automatically by COSMIC config system

1. Ensure pywal has generated colors:

   ls -la ~/.cache/wal/colors.json

2. Check if the colors file is valid JSON:

   cat ~/.cache/wal/colors.json | jq .

3. Run cosmic-wal with verbose output to see any errors:

   cosmic-wal --refresh

Ensure cosmic-wal has read access to the pywal colors file and write access to COSMIC config directories.

Check if the daemon is running:

ps aux | grep cosmic-wal

Restart the daemon:

pkill cosmic-wal
cosmic-wal --daemon

cargo build

cargo test

• cosmic-config: COSMIC configuration management
• cosmic-theme: COSMIC theming system
• serde: Serialization/deserialization
• serde_json: JSON handling for pywal colors
• toml: TOML configuration parsing
• notify: File system monitoring
• tokio: Async runtime

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit issues, feature requests, or pull requests.

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch
3. Make your changes
4. Test thoroughly
5. Submit a pull request

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

• pywal - Automatic color scheme generation
• COSMIC Desktop - The desktop environment this tool supports
• The Rust community for excellent crates and documentation