stylix kitty: wrong color8

I assert that this issue is relevant for Stylix

[x] I assert that this is a bug and not a user error or support request.
[x] I assert that this is not a duplicate of an existing issue.

Description

At some point recently (maybe in relation to #1308), kitty's color 8 seems to have changed. I'm noticing it because it makes the zsh autosuggestion text too dark (in a dark theme). I've also compared it to ghostty, where the colour is different (and corresponds to the color kitty used to use).

Kitty:

Ghostty:

flake.lock

For privacy reasons, I don't want to paste my whole flake.lock. I hope this is sufficient:

flake.lock

"stylix": {
      "inputs": {
        "base16": "base16",
        "base16-fish": "base16-fish",
        "base16-helix": "base16-helix",
        "base16-vim": "base16-vim",
        "firefox-gnome-theme": "firefox-gnome-theme",
        "flake-compat": "flake-compat_3",
        "flake-parts": "flake-parts_3",
        "git-hooks": "git-hooks",
        "gnome-shell": "gnome-shell",
        "home-manager": "home-manager_2",
        "nixpkgs": "nixpkgs_4",
        "nur": "nur_2",
        "systems": "systems_7",
        "tinted-foot": "tinted-foot",
        "tinted-kitty": "tinted-kitty",
        "tinted-schemes": "tinted-schemes",
        "tinted-tmux": "tinted-tmux",
        "tinted-zed": "tinted-zed"
      },
      "locked": {
        "lastModified": 1748376235,
        "narHash": "sha256-LIQnskjlVHTJC5dW4xoWlMCtrKeWOPW7/8HYd8IruLA=",
        "owner": "nix-community",
        "repo": "stylix",
        "rev": "e38a646e5cd3d000c8fffb14632f3bb8a45dd042",
        "type": "github"
      },
      "original": {
        "owner": "nix-community",
        "repo": "stylix",
        "type": "github"
      }
    }

Installation Method

Home Manager

System Information

system: "x86_64-linux"
host os: Linux 6.14.8, NixOS, 25.11 (Xantusia), 25.11.20250525.62b852f
multi-user?: yes
sandbox: yes
version: nix-env (Nix) 2.28.3
nixpkgs: /nix/store/nfqw3h3qc2mq37v6amw80b1rpi0g9x61-source

Notify maintainers

@trueNAHO

May 28 '25 17:05 jghauser

At some point recently (maybe in relation to #1308), kitty's color 8 seems to have changed. I'm noticing it because it makes the zsh autosuggestion text too dark (in a dark theme). I've also compared it to ghostty, where the colour is different (and corresponds to the color kitty used to use).

This seems to be a dilemma and resolving this is part of the roadmap:

[ ] (4) Support base24 scheme and Vim highlight groups to resolve styling inconsistencies

https://github.com/nix-community/stylix/issues/249

https://github.com/nix-community/stylix/issues/252

-- https://github.com/nix-community/stylix/issues/534

This is a dilemma because https://github.com/tinted-theming/tinted-kitty/commit/292c7175f7892b786277bfb785287a056ecb2ee5 was pulled to resolve the foot and Kitty inconsistencies, which was not possible until recently. Here is the relevant context:

This downgrade revokes commit 5699ba97c604 ("stylix: bump tinted-kitty
input (#588)"), which resolved the issue "bug: inconsistent color
between terminals (foot & kitty)" [2] by pulling [3]. Since the desired
commit [3] follows the commit introducing the breaking changes [4], it
cannot be pulled without resolving these breaking changes.

[1]: https://github.com/danth/stylix/issues/534
[2]: https://github.com/danth/stylix/issues/567
[3]: https://github.com/tinted-theming/tinted-kitty/commit/292c7175f7892b786277bfb785287a056ecb2ee5
[4]: https://github.com/tinted-theming/tinted-kitty/commit/9569d8a3e8dad5714174a015d955642641d295fb

-- f95022bb6e74 ("stylix: downgrade and lock tinted-kitty input (#589)")

Update and unlock the tinted-kitty input because the issue from commit
f95022bb6e74 ("stylix: downgrade and lock tinted-kitty input (#589)")
seems to have resolved itself.

-- 2e58606c9c14 ("flake: update and unlock tinted-kitty input (#1308)")

Now that foot and Kitty are consistent in that regard, Kitty is inconsistent with Ghostty. For reference, there has been a simple attempt at making Ghostty more consistent with other the terminals in commit d5f02b541064 ("ghostty: be consistent with other terminals (#806)").

I suppose properly resolving this takes quiet the effort because some changes need to be upstreamed to our tinted-foot and tinted-kitty dependencies, unless tinted-foot already contains the desired improvements that we have not bothered pulling until now:

https://github.com/nix-community/stylix/blob/e7fa0e5cc2336b6b25310d5e49c149f14fdbc1bb/flake.nix#L77-L84

The "simplest" solution would be to wait until the following roadmap task has been resolved, although this may take a (long) while until we get there:

[ ] (4) Support base24 scheme and Vim highlight groups to resolve styling inconsistencies

-- https://github.com/nix-community/stylix/issues/534

Otherwise, feel free to resolve the current terminal inconsistencies (without addressing the general solution mentioned in the roadmap). Although, this might be rather annoying to work on.

Jun 11 '25 22:06 trueNAHO

Thanks a lot for the in-depth explanation! Given the rather minor inconvenience of this issue, I'll probably just wait for the roadmap issues to be resolved. If I do get inspired randomly, I'll let you know 😄

Jun 17 '25 21:06 jghauser