All Otter Shell apps share one theme via otter-theme. The Theme tab in otter-settings previews all 12 built-in presets and writes changes on Apply.
Changes land in ~/.config/otter-shell/theme.conf. Running apps that watch the file pick them up. otter-term hot-reloads theme.conf without a restart. otter-bar refreshes widget colors on theme.conf changes without reloading otter-bar.conf.
Stick with otter-settings unless you need keys the UI does not expose. It keeps comments and field order on save.
Theme config file
Edit ~/.config/otter-shell/theme.conf directly if you prefer. otter-bar, otter-transcribe, and otter-term read it at startup and on change.
Terminal colors
Set otter-term’s 16-color palette and UI chrome in otter-settings under Terminal, or in ~/.config/otter-shell/otter-term.conf:
Terminal colors hot-reload on save.
App-level color overrides
Apps can override the shared theme with their own color keys. In otter-transcribe’s Transcribe tab (or otter-transcribe.conf):
Empty string "" inherits from the theme. Set a hex color to override for that app only.
Font
Default terminal font: IoskeleyMono Nerd Font, bundled in otter-shell-fonts at /usr/share/fonts/otter-shell/.
Change it in otter-settings under Terminal, or in otter-term.conf:
font_dpi_aware = true scales font and padding on high-DPI displays. Empty font_family = "" falls back to the bundled Nerd Font.
Window decorations
You can choose how Otter XDG toplevels ask for decorations, and how client-side titlebars look when CSD is on.
In otter-settings, open the Theme tab and use the Decorations and CSD sections. Or set keys in theme.conf:
csd_button_layout uses GTK-style layout. : is the center. Letters before it go left; letters after go right. c = close, b = maximize, s = minimize. Default :sbc puts minimize, maximize, and close on the right.
CSD also has titlebar and button color tokens (csd_titlebar_bg_active, csd_button_close_bg, and related keys). Built-in presets fill those in.
Built-in presets
In the otter-settings theme browser:
Otter Shell, Otter Shell Islands, Catppuccin (Mocha/Latte/Frappe/Macchiato), Nord, Gruvbox, Dracula, Tokyo Night, One Dark.
Wallpaper-reactive themes (Theme Gen)
Want colors that follow your wallpaper? Run otter-theme-gen with otter-wallpaper, then use the Theme Gen tab in otter-settings. It edits otter-theme-gen.conf. The daemon ships in otter-shell.
When enabled, otter-theme-gen watches $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/otter-shell/wallpaper-state and updates theme.conf. You can sync colors to other apps through template outputs: terminals, GTK, Hyprland (~/.config/hypr/otter-theme.lua), KDE color schemes, Papirus folder colors, bottom, btop, and more. Toggle each template in the Theme Gen tab, then click Apply.
Key options include Islands mode for Otter Shell Islands styling and an Opacity slider for panel transparency. 
