Pack reference

For what packs are and how to use them, see Packs.

File formatCopy Anchor Link

Packs are read from ~/.claude/glowup/packs, or $CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR/glowup/packs when that variable is set. The file name is the pack name, and comments are allowed.

{
  "format": 1,                      // required
  "name": "neon",                   // lowercase letters, digits, dashes; 1-40
  "extends": "classic",             // another pack to start from
  "description": "neon on deep purple",
  "colors": {
    "theme": "classic",             // a theme to start the palette from
    "palette": { "accent": "#ff3ec8", "text": "#f0e6ff" },
    "bg": "#1a0b33",                // what braille and half-block fades blend toward
    "rows": "cards",                // classic | cards | minimal | retro
    "border": "bold",               // round | single | double | bold | classic
    "borderColor": "#ff3ec8",
    "gradient": ["#ff3ec8", "#38e8ff"],
    "extras": { "hp": true, "combo": true },
    "rowFlags": { "labels": false, "markers": true, "xp": true },
    "meters": "dither",             // default | dither
    "dividers": true,               // a numbered rule above each prompt
    "glyphs": { "read": "»" },      // tool-kind glyphs, by key
    "hearts": ["●", "○"],           // full, then empty
    "words": ["Brewing", "Dialing in"], // spinner words
    "pet": { "body": "#7aa2f7", "light": "#a9c1ff", "shade": "#4a6fc4" } // Clawd's colors
  },
  "motion": {
    "spinner": "orb-states",        // stock | comet | eyes | orb-states | clawd | shimmer
    "shimmer": 2,                   // 0 none, 1 soft, 2 fast
    "color": "#38e8ff",             // defaults to the palette's accent
    "field": { "shape": "simplex", "speed": 0.3, "scale": 0.36, "dither": "4x4" }
  },
  "sound": {},                      // reserved for a later release
  "voice": {}                       // reserved for a later release
}

Every field except format and name is optional. palette takes the color roles listed in the theme reference. A layer can also be the name of another pack: "motion": "crt" uses crt's motion layer.

Checks and limitsCopy Anchor Link

• The file is at most 64 KB.
• format must be 1. A higher number is refused with made for a newer glowup.
• Colors are #rrggbb.
• Names and the description must be printable, with no control, zero-width or bidirectional characters. A description is at most 80 characters.
• Unknown keys are refused, except sound and voice at the top level.
• extends and layer references together go at most 8 deep. A loop or a ninth level is refused, with the chain named in the message.
• An unknown spinner id falls back to stock with a notice, so a pack made for a later glowup still loads.
• Any other bad value refuses the layer it is in, and that layer falls back to classic.

/glowup pack <url> accepts https:// only, waits up to 10 seconds, and validates the whole file and its extends chain before writing. It refuses a built-in name, or the name of an installed pack unless --force is given.

Glyphs, hearts and spinner wordsCopy Anchor Link

A pack can carry what a theme file carries beyond colors, laid over the theme the pack starts from.

• colors.glyphs is an object of glyph keys, each one width-1 character. Keys you leave out keep the theme's glyph. The keys are the ones in the theme reference.
• colors.hearts is two width-1 characters, full then empty.
• colors.words is a list of spinner words, each at most 24 characters. An empty list keeps the theme's words.

A glowup that predates these keys refuses the pack's colors layer as an unknown key. They are ignored while /glowup theme <name> overrides the pack's theme. A studio link or /glowup pack save writes them only when they differ from the theme.

Clawd's colorsCopy Anchor Link

colors.pet recolors Clawd with body, light and shade, each #rrggbb. They replace his orange body, its highlight and its shadow (#d77757, #ee9f7b, #a8553b); a key you leave out keeps its default, and the eyes and outfits do not change. The shiny pet stays gold: the unlock wins over a pack. Unlike glyphs, hearts and words, colors.pet survives a /glowup theme override. pet merges per key down an extends chain, and a studio link or /glowup pack save writes it only when it is set. A glowup that predates it refuses the pack's colors layer as an unknown key.

Row stylesCopy Anchor Link

Styles wrap or prefix a transcript row; the content Claude Code draws inside it is unchanged. Every style except classic adds a one-column left margin.

Not styled: notifications, messages from other agents, prompts expanded with ctrl+o or --verbose, the folded "Read 3 files" line, and tool progress. Outside fullscreen, rows already in scrollback keep the style they were printed with.

Row flagsCopy Anchor Link

colors.rowFlags holds three booleans.

cozy turns labels off. arcade turns labels off and markers and xp on.

ExtrasCopy Anchor Link

• hp replaces the hearts with an HP bar: HP ████████░░ 38% context left in the band, HP ████████░░ 38% weekly limit left in the pane's status box.
• combo shows COMBO x3 once three tool calls in a row succeed in one turn. An error, a failed test or a new turn resets it.

EffectsCopy Anchor Link

Three effects are drawn by glowup itself, so a pack switches them on from its JSON and still installs from a URL.

• colors.meters: "dither" replaces the hearts or HP bar in the pane's status box with one bar per usage window, 5h and wk, or one ctx bar when the session reports no windows. Each bar ramps from accent to text, dissolves through ▓▒░, and shows what is used as faint dots, followed by the percent left and the reset time.

• colors.dividers: true draws ░▒▓━━ 03 ━━━▓▒░ above each of your prompts, numbered by turn, in faint with the number in accent.

• motion.field fills the docked pane's open rows, between the tab and the status box, with animated noise dithered into braille dots of one color, the palette's faint unless color sets it. "simplex" is Paper's simplex shape, two layers of noise drifting past each other, and "warp" is noise folded through itself. glowup draws it live, 10 frames a second by default, and holds it still under /glowup motion reduced. The inline drawer has no open rows, so it shows no field.

  The object form takes the knobs of Paper's dithering shader, so a simplex look tuned there carries over: speed (0 to 4), scale (0.05 to 4, smaller is finer), rotation (degrees), offsetX and offsetY (-1 to 1, in the pane's shorter side), density (0.2 to 2), warp (0 to 8, the warp shape only), size and dither (2x2, 4x4 or 8x8). The pane's height stands for Paper's 720 px canvas, so copy scale, rotation and the offsets as they are. Paper's front color is color; its back color is the terminal background. fps (1 to 12) sets the frame rate.

  size is not Paper's: it counts braille dots per side of one dither pixel, from 1 to 4. A 24-row pane is 96 dots tall, where Paper's 720 px canvas at size 3 is 240 dither pixels tall, so leave size at its default of 1 to come closest to Paper.

  Copy Text

  "motion": { "field": { "shape": "simplex", "speed": 0.3, "scale": 0.36, "rotation": 24, "offsetX": -0.22, "offsetY": 0.26, "dither": "4x4" } }

  The field has a cost: Claude Code repaints all of it every frame. On an 88×24 pane at 10 frames a second it takes about a quarter of one CPU core more than the same pack without a field. A slow field looks the same at a lower fps.

A renderer plugin that answers for the pack draws its own version in place of these.

SpinnersCopy Anchor Link

The shimmer is a wave of color across the spinner word, between the gradient's two colors, or the accent and text colors when there is no gradient. 1 is soft and 2 is fast.

A non-stock spinner replaces Claude Code's whole spinner line, and Claude Code gives a mod no way to show its token count there, so the line shows elapsed time and esc to interrupt instead. The stock spinner keeps the token count. While Claude Code shows its own message, such as Compacting conversation…, its line is shown instead of the pack's.