Appearance and themes

On web and desktop, open Settings → Appearance to choose a theme and follow the system appearance or stay in light or dark mode. To use different themes for light and dark mode, open the Theme menu and choose For light mode or For dark mode. Appearance preferences are saved separately on each device or browser.

In the desktop app, turn on System glass in Settings → Appearance to use Liquid Glass on Macs with Apple silicon running macOS 26 or later, or Mica on Windows 11 22H2 or later. On macOS turning it on takes effect after GOAT restarts: choose Restart now when it asks, or Restart next to System glass later. The glass is tinted for light or dark mode, so custom theme colors do not show through the sidebar and title bar. System glass is off at 100% glass opacity or while reduced transparency or high contrast is enabled.

Choose Liquid Glass under Style in Settings → Appearance to turn the sidebar, chat, panels, terminal, and dialogs into tinted glass. Under Background, keep the built-in code landscape or choose your own image; the image stays on this device. In the desktop app on a Mac with Apple silicon and macOS 26 or later, or on Windows 11 22H2 or later, Liquid Glass uses System glass and your desktop shows through instead; on macOS this takes effect after you restart GOAT. Glass opacity sets how much the panels let through, and at 100% or with reduced transparency or high contrast they become solid. Toggle Liquid Glass in the command palette switches the style.

On web and desktop, use Change theme in the command palette to select a theme without leaving chat. Press Cmd+Option+A on macOS or Ctrl+Alt+A on Windows/Linux to open the theme picker directly. Use Change appearance in the command palette to choose System, Light, or Dark independently of the theme. Cmd+Option+Shift+A on macOS or Ctrl+Alt+Shift+A on Windows/Linux cycles through those modes. Customize these shortcuts under Settings → Keybindings.

On mobile, open Settings → Appearance. Mobile has its own themes and text, code, and terminal preferences. It does not follow environment themes or defaults.

On Android 12 or newer, choose the Material You theme in Appearance to use colors from your wallpaper. Selecting another theme replaces those colors. Like other themes, Material You can be selected separately for light and dark appearances. Android uses Material You Layout by default unless you have turned it off in Appearance. It changes shapes, spacing, and controls independently of the selected theme.

Composer context

Git-backed projects show branch and worktree controls below the composer while you create a thread. The controls retreat as the composer docks after you send the first message.

Turn on Composer context to keep those controls visible after the thread starts. This preference applies to the web and desktop clients.

Math

Turn on Render math in Settings → Appearance to typeset LaTeX in messages and Markdown previews on web, desktop, and mobile. It reads $…$, $$…$$, \(…\), and \[…\], outside of code. Fenced math blocks also render. Formulas work in tables, including absolute-value bars. Dollar amounts such as $5 and $10 stay text; write \$ to keep any other dollar sign literal. Wide formulas scroll horizontally while the surrounding text wraps. Copying a formula or exporting a table preserves the TeX.

The composer keeps TeX source editable, including when rich text is enabled. The Render math preference is saved separately on each device.

Motion

The main sidebar, right panel, and terminal drawer open and close immediately by default. Move the Panel animations slider above 0 ms to add motion, up to 400 ms, unless reduced motion is enabled in your operating system. Moving between threads always snaps to the selected thread’s panel state without replaying its transitions.

Custom themes

On web and desktop, choose Create theme to adjust a palette, or import a GOAT or VS Code theme. The theme editor’s color picker lets you select an area of the app to find the color to change. Export your theme as JSON to share it.

Environment themes

Environment themes and defaults come from the server serving your web app or the desktop app’s main local environment. Additional connections do not use them.

Select a published theme in Settings → Appearance to follow its palette as the server updates it. Duplicate makes an independent copy you can edit. A saved custom theme with the same ID takes precedence. If the server stops publishing the selected theme, GOAT falls back to its standard theme.

Run this on the server to set a default and switch connected clients to it:

goat theme set nightfall

Clients that are offline apply it when they reconnect. Each client applies the setting once; choosing another theme afterward sticks until the next goat theme set. Run the command again to reapply it, even if the name is unchanged.

goat theme clear removes the default without changing anyone’s current theme. goat theme show lists the default and published themes.

Publish a theme

Save a theme exported from GOAT into the server’s userdata/themes/ folder: ~/.goat/userdata/themes/ for goat serve, ~/.goat/desktop/userdata/themes/ for the desktop app, or <path>/userdata/themes/ for a server started with --base-dir <path>. The filename supplies the theme ID: nightfall.json can be selected with goat theme set nightfall. Keep the filename stable when updating its colors. Do not use system, light, dark, or a built-in theme’s ID.

For an integration that generates a palette, this shorter format also works:

{
  "name": "Nightfall",
  "appearance": "dark",
  "canvas": "#1a1b26",
  "accent": "#7aa2f7",
  "colors": {
    "terminalSelection": "#292e42",
    "error": "#f7768e"
  }
}

Set appearance to light or dark and supply hex colors for canvas and accent. GOAT generates the rest. The optional colors overrides use the names in the theme editor’s advanced view.

Write updates to a temporary file and rename it into place so clients never read a partial theme. Invalid files are not published.