Customization

The Jitzu shell supports theme customization, startup configuration, aliases, and path labels to personalize your workflow.

Theme Configuration

Colors are controlled by ~/.jitzu/colours.json. A default configuration is written automatically on first launch. All values are hex color strings (e.g. #87af87).

{
"syntax": {
  "command": "#87af87",
  "keyword": "#87afd7",
  "string": "#afaf87",
  "flag": "#87afaf",
  "pipe": "#af87af",
  "boolean": "#d7af87"
},
"git": {
  "branch": "#808080",
  "dirty": "#d7af87",
  "staged": "#87af87",
  "untracked": "#808080",
  "remote": "#87afaf"
},
"prompt": {
  "directory": "#87d7ff",
  "arrow": "#5faf5f",
  "error": "#d75f5f",
  "user": "#5f8787",
  "duration": "#d7af87",
  "time": "#808080",
  "jobs": "#87afaf"
},
"ls": {
  "directory": "#87afd7",
  "executable": "#87af87",
  "archive": "#d75f5f",
  "media": "#af87af",
  "code": "#87afaf",
  "config": "#d7af87",
  "project": "#d7af87",
  "size": "#87af87",
  "dim": "#808080"
},
"error": "#d75f5f",
"prediction": {
  "text": "#808080",
  "selected": {
    "bg": "#303050",
    "fg": "#ffffff"
  }
},
"selection": {
  "bg": "#264f78",
  "fg": "#ffffff"
},
"dropdown": {
  "gutter": "#404040",
  "status": "#5f87af"
}
}

Color Categories

• syntax — live input highlighting (commands, keywords, strings, flags, pipes, booleans)
• git — prompt git status indicators (branch, dirty, staged, untracked, remote ahead/behind)
• prompt — prompt elements (directory, arrow, error state, user, duration, clock, job count)
• ls — file listing colors by type (directories, executables, archives, media, code, config, project files)
• prediction — history prediction ghost text and dropdown selection
• selection — text selection highlight
• dropdown — completion dropdown gutter and status bar

Edit any value and restart the shell to apply changes. Malformed entries are silently ignored and fall back to defaults.

Startup Configuration

The file ~/.jitzu/config.jz is executed automatically when the shell starts, similar to .bashrc or .zshrc. Each line is run as a shell command, so you can set aliases, labels, environment variables, and define Jitzu functions that will be available in every session.

// ~/.jitzu/config.jz

// Set up aliases
alias ll="ls -la"
alias gs="git status"
alias gp="git push"

// Set up path labels
label git ~/git
label docs ~/Documents

// Set environment variables
export EDITOR=nvim
export DOTNET_CLI_TELEMETRY_OPTOUT=1

// Define helper functions
fun greet(): String {
  `Good morning, {whoami}!`
}

Lines starting with // are treated as comments and skipped.

Aliases

Aliases map short names to longer commands. They persist to disk across sessions and are automatically expanded when the alias name appears as the first word of a command.

> alias ll="ls -la"
Alias set: ll → ls -la

> ll
d-----       -  Jan 15 09:44  src/
-a-r--   2.5K  Jan 15 14:23  Program.cs

> aliases
ll → ls -la
gs → git status

> unalias ll
Alias removed: ll

Aliases are stored in the application data directory (e.g. ~/.local/share/Jitzu/aliases.txt on Linux or %APPDATA%/Jitzu/aliases.txt on Windows).

Path Labels

Labels map short names to directory paths. Use a label by appending a colon, e.g. git:. Labels work in cd, file arguments, and tab completion.

> label api ~/projects/api
Label set: api → /home/simon/projects/api

> cd api:
> pwd
/home/simon/projects/api

> cd api:src/controllers
> cat api:README.md

> labels
api → /home/simon/projects/api
docs → /home/simon/Documents

> unlabel api
Label removed: api

Labels expand transparently in file arguments, so commands like cat api:src/Program.cs and ls api: work as expected. Tab completion also understands label prefixes.