First you'll need to place selected themes in your `themes` directory (i.e `~/.config/helix/themes`), the directory might have to be created beforehand.
To use a custom theme add `theme = <name>` to your [`config.toml`](./configuration.md) or override it during runtime using `:theme <name>`.
The default theme.toml can be found [here](https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/blob/master/theme.toml), and user submitted themes [here](https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/blob/master/runtime/themes).
First create a file with the name of your theme as file name (i.e `mytheme.toml`) and place it in your `themes` directory (i.e `~/.config/helix/themes`).
Each line in the theme file is specified as below:
where `key` represents what you want to style, `fg` specifies the foreground color, `bg` the background color, and `modifiers` is a list of style modifiers. `bg` and `modifiers` can be omitted to defer to the defaults.
To specify only the foreground color:
```toml
key = "#ffffff"
```
if the key contains a dot `'.'`, it must be quoted to prevent it being parsed as a [dotted key](https://toml.io/en/v1.0.0#keys).
Less common modifiers might not be supported by your terminal emulator.
| Modifier |
| --- |
| `bold` |
| `dim` |
| `italic` |
| `underlined` |
| `slow_blink` |
| `rapid_blink` |
| `reversed` |
| `hidden` |
| `crossed_out` |
### Scopes
The following is a list of scopes available to use for styling.
#### Syntax highlighting
These keys match [tree-sitter scopes](https://tree-sitter.github.io/tree-sitter/syntax-highlighting#theme).
For a given highlight produced, styling will be determined based on the longest matching theme key. For example, the highlight `function.builtin.static` would match the key `function.builtin` rather than `function`.
We use a similar set of scopes as
[SublimeText](https://www.sublimetext.com/docs/scope_naming.html). See also
