Alacritty Config — tez's terminal setup

My personal Alacritty terminal configuration — a clean, minimal, GitHub-dark themed terminal with transparent windows, a bright green beam cursor, and sensible keybindings.

Features

🔤 Font	JetBrainsMono Nerd Font at size 12 — crisp, with icons/glyphs
🌑 Theme	GitHub-dark inspired palette (#0d1117 base, #e6edf3 text)
👀 Cursor	Beam style, non-blinking, high-visibility green (#7ee787)
🪟 Opacity	0.85 — transparent window (needs a compositor on X11)
📜 Scrollback	50,000 lines (5× the default)
📐 Padding	Dynamic padding + resize increments — content stays centered
🖱️ Mouse	Hides while typing, selections auto-copy to clipboard
⌨️ Keybinds	vi-mode toggle, fullscreen, new window, URL hints
🎨 Selection	Hand-picked GitHub-dark selection colors

Palette

Color	Hex	Preview
background	#0d1117
foreground	#e6edf3
black (normal)	#161b22
red	#ff7b72
green (accent)	#7ee787
yellow	#e3b341
blue	#79c0ff
magenta	#c0a6f0
cyan	#96d3e6
white	#e6edf3
bright black	#484f58
bright red	#ff9aa2
bright green	#a7f0ba
bright yellow	#f9e48b
bright blue	#a5d6ff
bright magenta	#d5b4ff
bright cyan	#c2e1ff
bright white	#ffffff
selection bg	#2d4a6e
cursor	#7ee787

Table of contents

• Features
• Palette
• Dependencies
• Install
  • Per-distro quick install
• My setup
• Autostart on other WMs / DEs
• Keybindings
• Uninstall
• Files

Dependencies

Dependency	Why	Notes
Alacritty	the terminal itself	required
JetBrains Mono Nerd Font	the font this config uses	required for correct rendering
picom (or any compositor)	makes the 0.85 window opacity show on X11	optional — without it the window renders opaque
X11	transparency is compositor-based on X11	on Wayland, opacity works via your compositor's own settings

Install

# 1. Install alacritty (Arch)
sudo pacman -S alacritty

# 2. Install the font (Arch; pick either)
sudo pacman -S ttf-jetbrains-mono-nerd        # official repos
paru -S ttf-jetbrains-mono-nerd               # or from AUR, same name

# 3. Optional: compositor for transparency (X11)
sudo pacman -S picom

# 4. Back up any existing config
mv ~/.config/alacritty ~/.config/alacritty.bak 2>/dev/null || true

# 5. Clone and link (or copy) this repo
git clone https://github.com/sillytez/alacritty.git
mkdir -p ~/.config/alacritty
cp alacritty/alacritty.toml ~/.config/alacritty/

# 6. Run picom once (or add it to your WM autostart), then launch
picom &
alacritty

Alacritty live-reloads its config, so edits apply the moment you save the file.

Per-distro quick install

One-liner installs per distro

# Arch
sudo pacman -S alacritty ttf-jetbrains-mono-nerd picom

# Manjaro (same as Arch)
sudo pacman -S alacritty ttf-jetbrains-mono-nerd picom

# Artix (same as Arch + AUR)
sudo pacman -S alacritty ttf-jetbrains-mono-nerd picom
paru -S ttf-jetbrains-mono-nerd

# Debian / Ubuntu
sudo apt install alacritty picom fonts-jetbrains-mono
# Nerd Font glyphs — grab from nerdfonts.com/font-downloads → ~/.local/share/fonts/ → fc-cache -f

# Fedora
sudo dnf install alacritty picom jetbrains-mono-fonts
# Nerd Font glyphs — grab from nerdfonts.com/font-downloads → ~/.local/share/fonts/ → fc-cache -f

# RHEL / Rocky / Alma
sudo dnf install epel-release
sudo dnf install alacritty picom jetbrains-mono-fonts
# Nerd Font glyphs — grab from nerdfonts.com/font-downloads → ~/.local/share/fonts/ → fc-cache -f

# Void
sudo xbps-install alacritty picom
# Nerd Font — grab from nerdfonts.com/font-downloads → ~/.local/share/fonts/ → fc-cache -f

# openSUSE
sudo zypper install alacritty picom jetbrains-mono-fonts
# Nerd Font glyphs — grab from nerdfonts.com/font-downloads → ~/.local/share/fonts/ → fc-cache -f

# Gentoo
sudo emerge alacritty picom media-fonts/jetbrains-mono
# Nerd Font glyphs — sudo emerge -av media-fonts/nerd-fonts

# Alpine
sudo apk add alacritty picom font-jetbrains-mono-nerd

# NixOS (in configuration.nix or flake.nix)
# environment.systemPackages = with pkgs; [
#   alacritty picom
#   (nerdfonts.override { fonts = [ "JetBrainsMono" ]; })
# ];

# Solus
sudo eopkg install alacritty picom jetbrains-mono

My setup

This config is tuned for my daily driver:

• Arch Linux (rolling, X11)
• oxwm — a lightweight tiling window manager, from the AUR (paru -S oxwm-git), config lives at ~/.config/oxwm/config.lua
• picom compositor — started by oxwm on login, which is what makes the window transparency work
• SDDM display manager, no DE

In oxwm, picom (and the wallpaper) are started via autostart in ~/.config/oxwm/config.lua:

oxwm.autostart("picom")
oxwm.autostart("xwallpaper --center ~/walls/whysoetude247.jpg")

Full setup at sillytez/oxwm.

Autostart on other WMs / DEs

The terminal itself doesn't care about your WM — the only WM-specific part is making sure a compositor runs so the transparency shows. Pick your setup:

i3 / sway

# i3 — add to ~/.config/i3/config
exec --no-startup-id picom

# sway (Wayland) — no picom needed, sway composits itself.
# Add to ~/.config/sway/config:
exec_always alacritty

bspwm

# Add to ~/.config/bspwm/bspwmrc
pgrep -x picom > /dev/null || picom &

dwm

# Add to ~/.xinitrc, before exec dwm
picom &
exec dwm

AwesomeWM

-- Add to ~/.config/awesome/rc.lua
awful.spawn.with_shell("picom")

Hyprland (Wayland)

# Hyprland has its own compositor — no picom needed.
# Add to ~/.config/hypr/hyprland.conf:
exec-once = alacritty

Xfce

# Xfce has its own compositor — enable it instead of picom:
xfconf-query -c xfwm4 -p /general/use_compositing -s true

KDE Plasma

# System Settings → Display and Monitor → Compositor → ensure enabled
# (kwin composits by default; transparency just works)

GNOME (Wayland)

# Mutter composits by default — transparency works out of the box
# (alacritty runs via XWayland, or use the Wayland-native build)

Keybindings

Keys	Action
Ctrl+Shift+Space	Toggle vi mode (cursor keys + text selection)
Ctrl+Shift+C	Copy
Ctrl+Shift+V	Paste
Ctrl+Enter	Toggle fullscreen
Ctrl+Shift+E	New window
Ctrl+Shift+O	Highlight URLs (type label to open)

Note: Ctrl+Shift+V is paste — vi-mode toggle is on Ctrl+Shift+Space so nothing can shadow it.

Uninstall

rm -rf ~/.config/alacritty

Files

File	Description
alacritty.toml	The entire configuration, heavily commented