# Configuration — Liu Terminal

> Liu Terminal configuration. Customize themes, keybindings, fonts, and settings via JSON config file.

URL: https://liu.software/docs/config/  
Language: en  
Updated: 2026-10-17

config.json lives at ~/.config/Liu/config.json. Keys are flat top-level strings and numbers (not nested objects). Liu loads it on launch and reloads automatically when the file changes on disk. Unknown keys are ignored.

## File layout

```
~/.config/Liu/
├── config.json        # main app settings
├── keybindings.json   # custom keybindings (see Keybindings page)
├── known_hosts        # OpenSSH-format known hosts
├── vault.db           # AES-256-GCM encrypted SQLite vault (PBKDF2 key derivation)
└── themes/
    ├── my-theme.json
    └── ...
```

## Top-level fields

`theme` string `"Liu"`

Active theme name. Must match one of the 18 built-ins or a JSON file in ~/.config/Liu/themes/.

`font_path` string `"JetBrainsMono-Regular.ttf"`

Primary font file. Bare filenames resolve against the bundled fonts directory; absolute paths work too.

`font_size` number `16`

Point size before DPI scaling.

`enable_ligatures` boolean `true`

Toggle programming-ligature shaping.

`cursor_style` number `0`

0 = block · 1 = underline · 2 = bar

`cursor_blink` boolean `true`

Blink in focused panes only.

`scrollback` number `1000`

Lines per pane (clamped 0–20000). Memory grows with cols × scrollback.

`vault_auto_lock_minutes` number `15`

Auto-lock vault after N minutes idle (0 = never).

`quake_mode` boolean `false`

Enable Quake-style slide-down window (requires quake\_hotkey).

`quake_hotkey` string ``"Ctrl+`"``

Global hotkey string when quake\_mode is true.

## Other supported keys

The table above shows the most commonly edited values. The loader also accepts these flat top-level groups:

- `line_height`, `font_normalize`, `font_smoothing`, `font_weight` and `fallback_font_0` … `fallback_font_3` control font metrics and fallback fonts. Defaults: `1.0`, `true`, `true`, `0`; font weight is clamped to `0–2`.
- `tab_sleep_idle_minutes` defaults to `20`; `confirm_close_agent`, `bold_is_bright`, `show_scrollbar`, `show_tab_bar`, `show_toolbar_icons` and `show_git_badge` default to `true`. `bidi_enabled`, `hide_title_bar` and `show_status_bar` default to `false`.
- `sidebar_width` defaults to `240` and is clamped to `160–500`; `opacity` defaults to `1.0` and is clamped to `0.2–1.0`; `padding` defaults to `2`.
- `browser_enabled`, `browser_last_url` and `browser_recent_0` … `browser_recent_7` store browser state. The in-app browser is available on the macOS WebKit build.
- `option_as_alt` accepts `off`, `left`, `right` or `both`; `prompt_recall` accepts `off`, `badge` or `always`. `cursor_animate` defaults to `false`, `notify_command_threshold` to `10`, and `allow_osc52_write` to `false`.
- `background_image`, `notes_vault_path`, `background_mode` (`stretch`/`center`/`tile`/`fill`), `background_opacity`, `background_blur` and `background_blur_radius` configure the image layer. The defaults are empty path, empty path, `fill`, `0.3`, `false` and `10`.
- `quake_mode`, `quake_hotkey`, `quake_height_ratio` and `quake_animation_duration` default to `false`, `` Ctrl+` ``, `0.4` and `0.2`; their numeric ranges are `0.1–1.0` and `0–10`.
- `profile_count` plus `profile_<index>_name`, `_font_path`, `_font_size`, `_theme`, `_cursor_style` and `_opacity` define up to 16 profiles. Translate-on-Tab and Voice keys are documented on their dedicated pages.
- `site_count` plus `site_<index>_name`, `_path`, `_command` and `_port` define up to 32 Site Manager entries; runtime process state is not persisted.

The persisted style keys are style\_tab\_gap, style\_tab\_dot\_size, style\_tab\_close\_size, style\_tab\_close\_margin, style\_tab\_indicator\_height, style\_status\_bar\_height, style\_sidebar\_default\_width, style\_sidebar\_min\_width, style\_sidebar\_max\_width, style\_sidebar\_header\_height, style\_terminal\_padding, style\_terminal\_top\_gap, style\_active\_pane\_indicator\_thickness and style\_active\_pane\_indicator\_color (an r,g,b,a string). Toolbar height and tab width are compile-time layout constants, not configurable keys.

## Example

```
{
  "theme": "Tokyo Night",
  "font_path": "JetBrainsMono-Regular.ttf",
  "font_size": 14,
  "enable_ligatures": true,
  "cursor_style": 2,
  "cursor_blink": false,
  "scrollback": 5000,
  "vault_auto_lock_minutes": 30,
  "quake_mode": true,
  "quake_hotkey": "Ctrl+`"
}
```

Tab count is hard-capped at 32 per window (MAX\_TABS in src/ui/ui.h) — not configurable here. GPU backend is chosen at compile time (Metal on macOS, OpenGL elsewhere). Numeric fields like scrollback are clamped to safe ranges on load.

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