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foot.ini(5) File Formats Manual foot.ini(5)

NAME
foot.ini - configuration file for foot(1)

DESCRIPTION
foot uses the standard unix configuration format, with section based
key/value pairs. The default section is usually unnamed, i.e. not pre-
fixed with a [section]. However it can also be explicitly named [main],
say if it needs to be reopened after any of the other sections.

foot will search for a configuration file in the following locations,
in this order:

• XDG_CONFIG_HOME/foot/foot.ini (defaulting to $HOME/.con-
fig/foot/foot.ini if unset)
• XDG_CONFIG_DIRS/foot/foot.ini (defaulting to /usr/lo-
cal/etc/xdg/foot/foot.ini if unset)

An example configuration file containing all options with their default
value commented out will usually be installed to /usr/lo-
cal/etc/xdg/foot/foot.ini.

Options are set using KEY=VALUE pairs:

[colors]
background=000000
foreground=ffffff

Empty values (KEY=) are not supported. String options do allow the
empty string to be set, but it must be quoted: KEY="")

SECTION: main
shell
Executable to launch. Typically a shell. Default: $SHELL if set,
otherwise the user's default shell (as specified in /usr/lo-
cal/etc/passwd). You can also pass arguments. For example /bin/bash
--norc.

login-shell
Boolean. If enabled, the shell will be launched as a login shell,
by prepending a '-' to argv[0]. Default: no.

term
Value to set the environment variable TERM to. Default: foot

font, font-bold, font-italic, font-bold-italic
Comma separated list of fonts to use, in fontconfig format. That
is, a font name followed by a list of colon-separated options. Most
noteworthy is :size=n (or :pixelsize=n), which is used to set the
font size. Note that the font size is also affected by the dpi-
aware option.

Examples:
• Dina:weight=bold:slant=italic
• Courier New:size=12
• Fantasque Sans Mono:fontfeatures=ss01
• Iosevka:fontfeatures=cv01=1:fontfeatures=cv06=1
• Meslo LG S:size=12, Noto Color Emoji:size=12
• Courier New:pixelsize=8

Be aware that, depending on your setup, there may be global Font-
Config options that overrides options set here. If an option ap-
pears to have no effect, ensure there is no global configuration
file that sets the same option with assign or assign_replace; use
one of the many append or possibly prepend modes.

For each option, the first font is the primary font. The remaining
fonts are fallback fonts that will be used whenever a glyph cannot
be found in the primary font.

The fallback fonts are searched in the order they appear. If a
glyph cannot be found in any of the fallback fonts, the dynamic
fallback list from fontconfig (for the primary font) is searched.

font-bold, font-italic and font-bold-italic allow custom fonts to
be used for bold/italic/bold+italic fonts. If left unconfigured,
the bold/italic variants of the regular font(s) specified in font
are used. Note: you may have to tweak the size(s) of the custom
bold/italic fonts to match the regular font.

To disable bold and/or italic fonts, set e.g. font-bold to exactly
the same value as font.

size is in points (as defined by the FontConfig format). To set a
pixel size, use pixelsize instead. Note that pixel sizes are unaf-
fected by DPI aware rendering (see dpi-aware), but are affected by
desktop scaling.

Default: monospace:size=8 (font), not set (font-bold, font-italic,
font-bold-italic).

font-size-adjustment
Amount, in points, pixels or percent, to increment/decrement the
font size when zooming in our out.

Examples:
font-size-adjustment=0.5 # Adjust by 0.5 points
font-size-adjustment=10px # Adjust by 10 pixels
font-size-adjustment=7.5% # Adjust by 7.5 percent

Default: 0.5

include
Absolute path to configuration file to import.

The import file has its own section scope. I.e. the including con-
figuration is still in the default section after the include, re-
gardless of which section the included file ends in.

• The path must be an absolute path, or start with ~/.
• Multiple include directives are allowed, but only one path
per directive.
• Nested imports are allowed.

Default: not set.

line-height
An absolute value, in points, that override line height from the
font metrics.

You can specify a height in pixels by using the px suffix: e.g.
line-height=12px.

Warning: when changing the font size at runtime (i.e. zooming in
our out), foot will change the line height by the same percentage.
However, due to rounding, it is possible the line height will be
"too small" for some font sizes, causing e.g. underscores to "dis-
appear".

See also: horizontal-letter-offset.

Default: 0.

horizontal-letter-offset, vertical-letter-offset
Configure the horizontal and vertical offsets used when positioning
glyphs within cells, in points, relative to the top left corner.

To specify an offset in pixels, append px: e.g. horizontal-letter-
offset=2px.

Default: 0.

underline-offset
Use a custom offset for underlines. The offset is, by default, in
points and relative the font's baseline. A positive value positions
the underline under the baseline, while a negative value positions
it above the baseline.

To specify an offset in pixels, append px: underline-offset=2px.

If left unset (the default), the offset specified in the font is
used, or estimated by foot if the font lacks underline positioning
information.

Default: unset.

underline-thickness
Use a custom thickness (height) for underlines. The thickness is,
by default, in points.

To specify a thickness in pixels, append px: underline-thick-
ness=1px.

If left unset (the default), the thickness specified in the font is
used.

Default: unset

strikeout-thickness
Use a custom thickness (height) for strikeouts. The thickness is,
by default, in points.

To specify a thickness in pixels, append px: strikeout-thick-
ness=1px.

If left unset (the default), the thickness specified in the font is
used.

Default: unset

gamma-correct-blending
Boolean. When enabled, foot will do gamma-correct blending in lin-
ear color space. This is how font glyphs are supposed to be ren-
dered, but since nearly no applications or toolkits are doing it on
Linux, the result may not look like you are used to.

Compared to the default (disabled), bright glyphs on a dark back-
ground will appear thicker, and dark glyphs on a light background
will appear thinner.

Also be aware that many fonts have been developed on systems that
do not do gamma-correct blending, and may therefore look thicker
than intended when rendered with gamma-correct blending, since the
font designer set the font weight based on incorrect rendering.

FreeType can limit the effect of the latter, with a technique
called stem darkening. It is only available for CFF fonts (Open-
Type, .otf) and disabled by default (in FreeType). You can enable
it by setting the environment variable FREETYPE_PROPERTIES="cff:no-
stem-darkening=0" before starting foot.

You may also want to enable 10-bit image buffers when gamma-correct
blending is enabled. Though probably only if you do not use a
transparent background (with 10-bit buffers, you only get 2 bits
alpha). See tweak.surface-bit-depth.

Default: enabled when compositor support is available

box-drawings-uses-font-glyphs
Boolean. When disabled, foot generates box/line drawing characters
itself. The are several advantages to doing this instead of using
font glyphs:

• No antialiasing effects where e.g. line endpoints appear
dimmed down, or blurred.
• Line- and box characters are guaranteed to span the entire
cell, resulting in a gap-less appearance.
• No alignment issues, i.e. lines are centered when they
should be.
• Many fonts lack some, or all, of the line- and box drawing
characters, causing fallback fonts to be used, which re-
sults in out-of-place looking glyphs (for example, badly
sized).

When enabled, box/line drawing characters are rendered using font
glyphs. This may result in a more uniform look, in some use cases.

When disabled, foot will render the following Unicode codepoints by
itself:

• U+02500 - U+0259F
• U+02800 - U+028FF
• U+1Fb00 - U+1FB9B

Default: no.

dpi-aware
Boolean.

When set to yes, fonts are sized using the monitor's DPI, making a
font of a given size have the same physical size, regardless of
monitor. In other words, if you drag a foot window between differ-
ent monitors, the font size remains the same.

In this mode, the monitor's scaling factor is ignored; doubling the
scaling factor will not double the font size.

When set to no, the monitor's DPI is ignored. The font is instead
sized using the monitor's scaling factor; doubling the scaling fac-
tor does double the font size.

Note that this option typically does not work with bitmap fonts,
which only contains a pre-defined set of sizes, and cannot be dy-
namically scaled. Whichever size (of the available ones) that best
matches the DPI or scaling factor, will be used.

Also note that if the font size has been specified in pixels (:pix-
elsize=N, instead of :size=N), DPI scaling (dpi-aware=yes) will
have no effect (the specified pixel size will be used as is). But,
if the monitor's scaling factor is used to size the font (dpi-
aware=no), the font's pixel size will be multiplied with the scal-
ing factor.

Default: no

pad
Padding between border and glyphs, in pixels (subject to output
scaling), in the form XxY.

This will add at least X pixels on both the left and right sides,
and Y pixels on the top and bottom sides. The grid content will be
anchored in the top left corner. I.e. if the window manager forces
an odd window size on foot, the additional pixels will be added to
the right and bottom sides.

To instead center the grid content, append center (e.g. pad=5x5
center).

Default: 0x0.

resize-delay-ms

Time, in milliseconds, of "idle time" before foot performs text re-
flow, and sends the new window dimensions to the client application
while doing an interactive resize of a foot window. Idle time in
this context is a period of time where the window size is not
changing.

In other words, while you are fiddling with the window size, foot
does not send the updated dimensions to the client. It also does a
fast "truncating" resize of the grid, instead of actually reflowing
the contents. Only when you pause the fiddling for resize-delay-ms
milliseconds is the client updated, and the contents properly re-
flowed.

Emphasis is on while here; as soon as the interactive resize ends
(i.e. when you let go of the window border), the final dimensions
is sent to the client, without any delays.

Setting it to 0 disables the delay completely.

Default: 100.

resize-by-cells
Boolean.

When set to yes, the window size will be constrained to multiples
of the cell size (plus any configured padding). When set to no, the
window size will be unconstrained, and padding may be adjusted as
necessary to accommodate window sizes that are not multiples of the
cell size.

This option only applies to floating windows. Sizes of maxmized,
tiled or fullscreen windows will not be constrained to multiples of
the cell size.

Default: yes

resize-keep-grid
Boolean.

When set to yes, the window size will be adjusted with changes in
font size to preserve the dimensions of the text grid. When set to
no, the window size will remain constant and the text grid will be
adjusted as necessary to fit the window.

This option only applies to floating windows.

Default: yes

initial-window-size-pixels
Initial window width and height in pixels (subject to output scal-
ing), in the form WIDTHxHEIGHT. The height includes the titlebar
when using CSDs. Mutually exclusive to initial-window-size-chars.

Note that this option may not work as expected if fractional scal-
ing is being used, due to the fact that many compositors do not re-
port the correct scaling factor until after a window has been
mapped.

Default: 700x500.

initial-window-size-chars
Initial window width and height in characters, in the form WIDTHx-
HEIGHT. Mutually exclusive to initial-window-size-pixels.'

Note that if you have a multi-monitor setup, with different scaling
factors, there is a possibility the window size will not be set
correctly. If that is the case, use initial-window-size-pixels in-
stead.

And, just like initial-window-size-pixels, this option may not work
as expected if fractional scaling is being used (see initial-win-
dow-size-pixels for details).

Default: not set.

initial-window-mode
Initial window mode for each newly spawned window: windowed, maxi-
mized or fullscreen. Default: windowed.

title
Initial window title. Default: foot.

locked-title
Boolean. If enabled, applications are not allowed to change the ti-
tle at run-time. Default: no.

app-id
Value to set the app-id property on the Wayland window to. The com-
positor can use this value to e.g. group multiple windows, or apply
window management rules. Default: foot (normal mode), or footclient
(server mode).

bold-text-in-bright
Semi-boolean. When enabled, bold text is rendered in a brighter
color (in addition to using a bold font). The color is brightened
by increasing its luminance.

If set to palette-based, rather than a simple yes|true, colors
matching one of the 8 regular palette colors will be brightened us-
ing the corresponding bright palette color. Other colors will not
be brightened.

Default: no.

word-delimiters
String of characters that act as word delimiters when selecting
text. Note that whitespace characters are always word delimiters,
regardless of this setting. Default: ,`|:"'()[]{}<>

selection-target
Clipboard target to automatically copy selected text to. One of
none, primary, clipboard or both. Default: primary.

workers
Number of threads to use for rendering. Set to 0 to disable multi-
threading. Default: the number of available logical CPUs (including
SMT). Note that this is not always the best value. In some cases,
the number of physical cores is better.

utmp-helper
Path to utmp logging helper binary.

When starting foot, an utmp record is created by launching the
helper binary with the following arguments:

When foot is closed, the utmp record is removed by launching the
helper binary with the following arguments:

logout

Set to none to disable utmp records. Default: /usr/libexec/ulog-
helper.

SECTION: environment
This section is used to define environment variables that will be set
in the client application, in addition to the variables inherited from
the terminal process itself.

The format is simply:

name=value

Note: do not set TERM here; use the term option in the main (default)
section instead.

SECTION: security
osc52

Whether OSC-52 (clipboard access) is enabled or disabled. One of
disabled, copy-enabled, paste-enabled or enabled.

OSC-52 gives terminal application access to the host clipboard
(i.e. the Wayland clipboard). This is normally not a security is-
sue, since all applications can access the clipboard directly over
the Wayland socket.

However, when SSH:ing into a remote system, or accessing a con-
tainer etc, the terminal applications may be untrusted, and you
might consider disabling the host clipboard access.

• disabled: disables all clipboard access
• copy-enabled: applications can write to the clipboard, but not
read from it.
• paste-enabled: applications can read from the clipboard, but
not write to it.
• enabled: all applications have full access to the host clip-
board. This is the default.

Default: enabled

SECTION: bell
system
Boolean, when set to yes, ring the system bell. The bell is rung
independent of whether the foot window has keyboard focus or not.
Exact behavior is compositor dependent.

Default: yes

urgent
Boolean, when set to yes, foot will signal urgency to the composi-
tor through the XDG activation protocol whenever BEL is received,
and the window does NOT have keyboard focus.

If the compositor does not implement this protocol, the margins
will be painted in red instead.

Applications can enable/disable this feature programmatically with
the CSI ? 1042 h and CSI ? 1042 l escape sequences.

Default: no

notify
Boolean, when set to yes, foot will emit a desktop notification us-
ing the command specified in the notify option whenever BEL is re-
ceived. By default, bell notifications are shown only when the win-
dow does not have keyboard focus. See desktop-notifications.in-
hibit-when-focused.

Default: no

visual
Boolean, when set to yes, foot will flash the terminal window. De-
fault: no

command
When set, foot will execute this command when BEL is received. De-
fault: none

command-focused
Boolean, whether to run the command on BEL even while focused. De-
fault: no

SECTION: desktop-notifications
command
Command to execute to display a notification.

Template arguments
${title} and ${body} will be replaced with the notification's
actual title and body (message content).

${app-id} is replaced with the value of the command line option
--app-id, and defaults to foot (normal mode), or footclient
(server mode).

${window-title} is replaced with the current window title.

${icon} is replaced by the icon specified in the notification
request, or the empty string if no icon was specified. Can be
used with e.g. notify-send's --icon option, or preferably, by
setting the image-path hint (with e.g. notify-send's --hint op-
tion).

${category} is replaced by the notification's catogory. Can be
used together with e.g. notify-send's --category option.

${urgency} is replaced with the notifications urgency; low,
normal or critical. Can be used together with e.g. notify-
send's --urgency option.

${expire-time} is replaced with the notification specified no-
tification timeout. Can be used together with e.g. notify-
send's --expire-time option.

${replace-id} is replaced by the notification daemon assigned
ID that the notification replaces/updates. For this to work,
foot needs to know the externally assigned IDs of previously
emitted notifications, see the 'stdout' section below. Can be
used together with e.g. notify-send's --replace-id option.

${muted} is replaced by either true or false, depending on
whether the notification has requested all notification sounds
be muted. It is intended to set the suppress-sound hint (with
e.g. notify-send's --hint option).

${sound-name} is replaced by sound-name requested by the noti-
fication. This should be a name from the freedesktop sound nam-
ing specification, but this is not something that foot en-
forces. It is intended to set the sound-name hint (with e.g.
notify-send's --hint option).

${action-argument} will be expanded to the command-action-argu-
ment option, for each notification action. There will always be
at least one action, the "default" action. Foot uses this to
enable window focusing, and reporting notification activation
to applications that requested such events.

Applications can also define their own custom notification ac-
tions. See the command-action-argument option for details.

Ways to trigger notifications
Applications can trigger notifications in the following ways:

• OSC 777: \e]777;notify;<title>;<body>\e\\
• OSC 99: \e]99;;<title>\e\\ (this is just a bare bones exam-
ple; this protocol has lots of features, see
https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/desktop-notifications)

By default, notifications are inhibited if the foot window has
keyboard focus. See desktop-notifications.inhibit-when-focused.

Window activation (focusing)
Foot can focus the window when the notification is 'activated'.
It can also send an event back to the client application, noti-
fying it that the notification has been 'activated', This typi-
cally happens when the default action is invoked, and/or when
the notification is clicked, but exact behavior depends on the
notification daemon in use, and how it has been configured.

For this to work, foot needs to know when the notification was
activated (as opposed to just dismissed), and it needs an XDG
activation token.

There are two parts to handle this. First, the notification
must define an action. For this purpose, foot will add a "de-
fault" action to the notification (see the command-action-argu-
ment option).

Second, foot needs to know when the notification is activated,
and it needs to get hold of the XDG activation token.

Both are expected to be printed on stdout.

Foot expects the action name (not label) to be printed on a
single line. No prefix, no postfix.

Foot expects the activation token to be printed on a single
line, prefixed with xdgtoken=.

Example:
default
xdgtoken=18179adf579a7a904ce73754964b1ec3

The expected format of stdout may change at any time. Please
read the changelog when upgrading foot.

Note: notify-send does not, out of the box, support reporting
the XDG activation token in any way. This means window activa-
tion will not work by default.

Stdout
Foot recognizes the following things from the notification
helper's stdout:

• id: integer in base 10, daemon assigned notification ID
• id=id: same as plain nnn.
• default: the 'default' action was triggered
• action=default: same as default
• action=n: application custom action n triggered
• n: integer in base 10, appearing after the ID; application
custom action n triggered
• xdgtoken=xyz: XDG activation token.

Example #1:
17
action=default
xdgtoken=95ebdfe56e4f47ddb5bba9d7dc3a2c35

Foot recognizes this as:
• notification has the daemon assigned ID 17
• the user triggered the default action
• the notification send an XDG activation token

Example #2:
17
1

Foot recognizes this as:
• notification has the daemon assigned ID 17
• the user triggered the first custom action, "1"

Example #3:
id=17
1

Foot recognizes this as:
• notification has the daemon assigned ID 17
• the user triggered the first custom action, "1

Default: notify-send
--wait
--app-name ${app-id}
--icon ${app-id}
--category ${category}
--urgency ${urgency}
--expire-time ${expire-time}
--hint STRING:image-path:${icon}
--hint BOOLEAN:suppress-sound:${muted}
--hint STRING:sound-name:${sound-name}
--replace-id ${replace-id}
${action-argument}
--print-id
-- ${title} ${body}.

command-action-argument
String to use with command to enable passing action/button names to
the notification helper.

Foot will always configure a "default" action that can be used to
"activate" the notification, which in turn can cause the foot win-
dow to be focused, or an escape to be sent to the terminal applica-
tion (depending on how the application generated the notification).

Furthermore, the OSC-99 notifications protocol allows applications
to define their own actions. Foot uses a combination of the command
option, and the command-action-argument option to pass the names of
the actions to the notification helper.

This option has the following template arguments:

• ${action-name}: the name of the action; default for the default
action configured by foot, and n, where n is an integer >= 1,
for application defined actions.
• ${action-label}: Activate for the default action, and a free-
form string for application defined actions.

For each notification action (remember, there will always be at
least one), command-action-argument will be expanded with the ac-
tion's name and label.

Then, ${action-argument} is expanded command to the full list of
actions.

If command-action-argument is set to the empty string, no actions
will be passed to command. That is, ${action-argument} will be re-
placed with the empty string.

Example:

command-action-argument=--action ${action-name}=${action-label}
command=notify-send ${action-argument} ...

Assume the application defined two custom actions: OK and Cancel.

Given the above, foot will execute:

notify-send
--action default='Click to activate'
--action 1=OK
--action 2=Cancel
...

Default: --action ${action-name}=${action-label}

close
Command to execute to close an existing notification.

${id} is expanded to the ID of the notification that should be
closed. For example:

fyi --close ${id}

Closing a notification is only supported by the Kitty Desktop Noti-
fication protocol, OSC-99.

If set to the empty string (the default), foot will instead try to
close the notification by sending SIGINT to the notification helper
process. For example, notify-send --wait (libnotify >= 0.8.0) re-
sponds to SIGINT by closing the notification.

Default: not set

inhibit-when-focused
Boolean. If enabled, foot will not display notifications if the
terminal window has keyboard focus.

Default: yes

SECTION: scrollback
lines
Number of scrollback lines. The maximum number of allocated lines
will be this value plus the number of visible lines, rounded up to
the nearest power of 2. Default: 1000.

multiplier
Amount to multiply mouse scrolling with. It is a decimal number,
i.e. fractions are allowed. Default: 3.0.

indicator-position
Configures the style of the scrollback position indicator. One of
none, fixed or relative. none disables the indicator completely.
fixed always renders the indicator near the top of the window, and
relative renders the indicator at the position corresponding to the
current scrollback position. Default: relative.

indicator-format
Which format to use when displaying the scrollback position indica-
tor. Either percentage, line, or a custom fixed string. This option
is ignored if indicator-position=none. Default: empty string.

SECTION: url
Note that you can also add custom regular expressions, see the 'regex'
section.

launch
Command to execute when opening URLs. ${url} will be replaced with
the actual URL. Default: xdg-open ${url}.

osc8-underline
When to underline OSC-8 URLs. Possible values are url-mode and al-
ways.

When set to url-mode, OSC-8 URLs are only highlighted in URL mode,
just like auto-detected URLs.

When set to always, OSC-8 URLs are always highlighted, regardless
of their other attributes (bold, italic etc). Note that this does
not make them clickable.

Default: url-mode

label-letters
String of characters to use when generating key sequences for URL
jump labels.

If you change this option to include the letter t, you should also
change the default [url-bindings].toggle-url-visible key binding to
avoid a clash.

Default: sadfjklewcmpgh.

regex
Regular expression to use when auto-detecting URLs. The format is
"POSIX-Extended Regular Expressions". Note that the first marked
subexpression is used as the URL. In other words, if you want the
whole regex match to be used as an URL, surround all of it with
parenthesis: (regex-pattern).

Default: (([a-z][[:alnum:]-]+:(/{1,3}|[a-
z0-9%])|www[:digit:]{0,3}[.])([^[:space:](){}<>]+|(([^[:space:](){}<>]+|(([^[:space:](){}<>]+)))*)|[([^][[:space:](){}<>]+|([[^][[:space:](){}<>]+]))*])+((([^[:space:](){}<>]+|(([^[:space:](){}<>]+)))*)|[([^][[:space:](){}<>]+|([[^][[:space:](){}<>]+]))*]|[^][[:space:]`!(){};:'".,<>?]))

SECTION: regex
Similar to the 'url' mode, but with custom defined regular expressions
(and launchers).

To use a custom defined regular expression, you also need to add a key
binding for it. This is done in the key-binding section, see below for
details. For example, a regex to detect hash digests (e.g. git commit
hashes) could look like:

[regex:hashes]
regex=([a-fA-F0-9]{7,128})
launch=path-to-script-or-application ${match}

[key-bindings]
regex-launch=[hashes] Control+Shift+q
regex-copy=[hashes] Control+Mod1+Shift+q

launch
Command to execute when "launching" a regex match. ${match} will be
replaced with the actual URL. Default: not set.

regex
Regular expression to use when matching text. The format is "POSIX-
Extended Regular Expressions". Note that the first marked subex-
pression is used as the match. In other words, if you want the
whole regex match to be used, surround all of it with parenthesis:
(regex-pattern).

Default: not set.

SECTION: cursor
This section controls the cursor style and color. Note that applica-
tions can change these at runtime.

style
Configures the default cursor style, and is one of: block, beam,
underline or hollow. Note that this can be overridden by applica-
tions. Default: block.

unfocused-style
Configures how the cursor is rendered when the terminal window is
unfocused. Possible values are:

• unchanged: render cursor in exactly the same way as when the
window has focus.
• hollow: render a block cursor, but hollowed out.
• none: do not display any cursor at all.

blink
Boolean. Enables blinking cursor. Note that this can be overridden
by applications. Related option: blink-rate. Default: no.

blink-rate
The rate at which the cursor blink, when cursor blinking has been
enabled. Expressed in milliseconds between each blink. Default:
500.

color
Two space separated RRGGBB values (i.e. plain old 6-digit hex val-
ues, without prefix) specifying the foreground (text) and back-
ground (cursor) colors for the cursor.

Example: ff0000 00ff00 (green cursor, red text)

Default: the regular foreground and background colors, reversed.

beam-thickness
Thickness (width) of the beam styled cursor. The value is in
points, and its exact value thus depends on the monitor's DPI. To
instead specify a thickness in pixels, use the px suffix: e.g.
beam-thickness=2px. Default: 1.5

underline-thickness
Thickness (height) of the underline styled cursor. The value is in
points, and its exact value thus depends on the monitor's DPI.

To instead specify a thickness in pixels, use the px suffix: e.g.
underline-thickness=2px.

Note that if left unset, the cursor's thickness will scale with the
font size, while if set, the size is fixed.

Default: font underline thickness.

SECTION: mouse
hide-when-typing
Boolean. When enabled, the mouse cursor is hidden while typing. De-
fault: no.

alternate-scroll-mode
Boolean. This option controls the initial value for the alternate
scroll mode. When this mode is enabled, mouse scroll events are
translated to up/down key events when displaying the alternate
screen.

This lets you scroll with the mouse in e.g. pagers (like less)
without enabling native mouse support in them.

Alternate scrolling is not used if the application enables native
mouse support.

This option can be modified by applications at run-time using the
escape sequences CSI ? 1007 h (enable) and CSI ? 1007 l (disable).

Default: yes.

SECTION: touch
long-press-delay
Number of milliseconds to distinguish between a short press and a
long press on the touchscreen.

Default: 400.

SECTION: colors
This section controls the 16 ANSI colors, the default foreground and
background colors, and the extended 256 color palette. Note that appli-
cations can change these at runtime.

The colors are in RRGGBB format (i.e. plain old 6-digit hex values,
without prefix). That is, they do not have an alpha component. You can
configure the background transparency with the alpha option.

foreground
Default foreground color. This is the color used when no ANSI color
is being used. Default: 839496.

background
Default background color. This is the color used when no ANSI color
is being used. Default: 002b36.

regular0, regular1 .. regular7
The eight basic ANSI colors (Black, Red, Green, Yellow, Blue, Ma-
genta, Cyan, White). Default: 242424, f62b5a, 47b413, e3c401,
24acd4, f2affd, 13c299, e6e6e6 (starlight theme, V4).

bright0, bright1 .. bright7
The eight bright ANSI colors (Black, Red, Green, Yellow, Blue, Ma-
genta, Cyan, White). Default: 616161, ff4d51, 35d450, e9e836,
5dc5f8, feabf2, 24dfc4, ffffff (starlight theme, V4).

dim0, dim1 .. dim7
Custom colors to use with dimmed colors. Dimmed colors do not have
an entry in the color palette. Applications emit them by combining
a color value, and a "dim" attribute.

By default, foot implements this by reducing the luminance of the
current color. This is a generic approach that applies to both col-
ors from the 256-color palette, as well as 24-bit RGB colors.

You can change this behavior by setting the dimN options. When set,
foot will match the current color against the color palette, and if
it matches one of the regularN colors, the corresponding dimN color
will be used.

If instead the current color matches one of the brightN colors, the
corresponding regularN color will be used.

If the current color does not match any known color, it is dimmed
by reducing the luminance (i.e. the same behavior as if the dimN
options are unconfigured). 24-bit RGB colors will typically fall
into this category.

Note that applications can change the regularN and brightN colors
at runtime. However, they have no way of changing the dimN colors.
If an application has changed the regularN colors, foot will still
use the corresponding dimN color, as configured in foot.ini.

Default: not set.

0 .. 255
Arbitrary colors in the 256-color palette. Default: for 0 .. 15,
see regular and bright defaults above; see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANSI_escape_code#8-bit for an expla-
nation of the remainder.

sixel0 .. sixel15
The default sixel color palette. Default: 000000, 3333cc, cc2121,
33cc33, cc33cc, 33cccc, cccc33, 878787, 424242, 545499, 994242,
549954, 995499, 549999, 999954, cccccc.

alpha
Background translucency. A value in the range 0.0-1.0, where 0.0
means completely transparent, and 1.0 is opaque. Default: 1.0.

selection-foreground, selection-background
Foreground (text) and background color to use in selected text.
Note that both options must be set, or the default will be used.
Default: inverse foreground/background.

jump-labels
Two color values specifying the foreground (text) and background
colors to use when rendering jump labels in URL mode. Default: reg-
ular0 regular3.

scrollback-indicator
Two color values specifying the foreground (text) and background
(indicator itself) colors for the scrollback indicator. Default:
regular0 bright4.

search-box-no-match
Two color values specifying the foreground (text) and background
colors for the scrollback search box, when there are no matches.
Default: regular0 regular1.

search-box-match
Two color values specifying the foreground (text) and background
colors for the scrollback search box, when the search box is either
empty, or there are matches. Default: regular0 regular3.

urls
Color to use for the underline used to highlight URLs in URL mode.
Default: regular3.

flash
Color to use for the terminal window flash. Default: 7f7f00.

flash-alpha
Flash translucency. A value in the range 0.0-1.0, where 0.0 means
completely transparent, and 1.0 is opaque. Default: 0.5.

SECTION: csd
This section controls the look of the CSDs (Client Side Decorations).
Note that the default is to not use CSDs, but instead to use SSDs
(Server Side Decorations) when the compositor supports it.

Note that unlike the colors defined in the colors section, the color
values here are in AARRGGBB (i.e. plain old 8-digit hex values) format.
I.e. they contain an alpha component - 00 means completely transparent,
and ff fully opaque.

Examples:

• ffffffff: white, fully opaque
• ff000000: black, fully opaque
• 7fffffff: white, semi-transparent
• ff00ff00: green, fully opaque

preferred
Which type of window decorations to prefer: client (CSD), server
(SSD) or none.

Note that this is only a hint to the compositor. Depending on com-
positor support, and how it has been configured, it may instruct
foot to use CSDs even though this option has been set to server, or
render SSDs despite client or none being set.

Default: server.

size
Height, in pixels (subject to output scaling), of the titlebar.
Setting it to 0 will hide the titlebar, while still showing the
border (if border-width is set to a non-zero value). Default: 26.

color
Titlebar color. Default: use the default foreground color.

font
Font to use for the title bar. This is a list of fonts, similar to
the main font option. Note that the font will be sized using the
title bar size. That is, all :size and :pixelsize attributes will
be ignored. Default: primary font.

hide-when-maximized
Boolean. When enabled, the CSD titlebar is hidden when the window
is maximized. The completely disable the titlebar, set size to 0
instead. Default: no.

double-click-to-maximize
Boolean. When enabled, double-clicking the CSD titlebar will
(un)maximize the window. Default: yes.

border-width
Width of the border, in pixels (subject to output scaling). Note
that the border encompasses the entire window, including the title
bar. Default: 0.

border-color
Color of border. By default, the title bar color is used. If the
title bar color has not been set, the default foreground color
(from the color scheme) is used. Default: titlebar color.

button-width
Width, in pixels (subject to output scaling), of the minimize/maxi-
mize/close buttons. Default: 26.

button-color
Foreground color on the minimize/maximize/close buttons. Default:
use the default background color.

button-minimize-color
Minimize button's background color. Default: use the default regu-
lar4 color (blue).

button-maximize-color
Maximize button's background color. Default: use the default regu-
lar2 color (green).

button-close-color
Close button's background color. Default: use the default regular1
color (red).

SECTION: key-bindings
This section lets you override the default key bindings.

The general format is action=combo1...comboN. That is, each action may
have one or more key combinations, space separated. Each combination is
in the form mod1+mod2+key. The names of the modifiers and the key must
be valid XKB key names.

Note that if Shift is one of the modifiers, the key must not be in up-
per case. For example, Control+Shift+V will never trigger, but Con-
trol+Shift+v will.

Note that Alt is usually called Mod1.

xkbcli interactive-wayland can be useful for finding keysym names.

When matching key presses to key bindings, foot uses a couple of dif-
ferent approaches.

As an example, let's say you press ctrl+shift+c (assume plain us ASCII
layout). XKB will tell foot Control+C was pressed. Note the lack of the
shift modifier, and the upper case 'C'. Internally, this is called the
"translated" form, and is what foot tries to match first.

If no "translated" key bindings can be found, foot proceeds to checking
the "untranslated" variant. Using the same example as above, this will
match Control+Shift+c (shift modifier present, lower case 'c').

This means you can use either form in your foot configuration, and that
Control+C (and similar) has higher priority than Control+Shift+c. Also
note that while foot normally detects when the same combination is as-
signed to multiple actions, it will not detect Control+C vs. Con-
trol+Shift+c collisions. Call it a known bug...

Finally, foot tries to match the raw key code. Here, the primary layout
is queried for all key codes that generate a particular XKB symbol, and
the pressed key's code is matched against this. For example, if you use
the layouts "us,de(neo)", the 'r' key generates the symbol 'c' in the
neo layout. I.e. to get a 'c', you press 'r'. The match logic described
above will only match 'c' key bindings (e.g. Control+Shift+c). The raw
mode however, will match 'r' key bindings (e.g. Control+Shift+r). This
is useful for non-latin layouts, where you would otherwise have to cus-
tomize all key bindings.

A key combination can only be mapped to one action. Let's say you want
to bind Control+Shift+R to fullscreen. Since this is the default short-
cut for search-start, you first need to unmap the default binding. This
can be done by setting action=none; e.g. search-start=none.

noop
All key combinations listed here will not be sent to the applica-
tion. Default: none.

scrollback-up-page
Scrolls up/back one page in history. Default: Shift+Page_Up
Shift+KP_Page_Up.

scrollback-up-half-page
Scrolls up/back half of a page in history. Default: none.

scrollback-up-line
Scrolls up/back a single line in history. Default: none.

scrollback-down-page
Scroll down/forward one page in history. Default: Shift+Page_Down
Shift+KP_Page_Down.

scrollback-down-half-page
Scroll down/forward half of a page in history. Default: none.

scrollback-down-line
Scroll down/forward a single line in history. Default: none.

scrollback-home
Scroll to the beginning of the scrollback. Default: none.

scrollback-end
Scroll to the end (bottom) of the scrollback. Default: none.

clipboard-copy
Copies the current selection into the clipboard. Default: Con-
trol+Shift+c XF86Copy.

clipboard-paste
Pastes from the clipboard. Default: Control+Shift+v XF86Paste.

primary-paste
Pastes from the primary selection. Default: Shift+Insert (also de-
fined in mouse-bindings).

search-start
Starts a scrollback/history search. Default: Control+Shift+r.

font-increase
Increases the font size by 0.5pt. Default: Control+plus Con-
trol+equal Control+KP_Add (also defined in mouse-bindings).

font-decrease
Decreases the font size by 0.5pt. Default: Control+minus Con-
trol+KP_Subtract (also defined in mouse-bindings).

font-reset
Resets the font size to the default. Default: Control+0 Con-
trol+KP_0.

spawn-terminal
Spawns a new terminal. If the shell has been configured to emit the
OSC 7 escape sequence, the new terminal will start in the current
working directory. Default: Control+Shift+n.

minimize
Minimizes the window. Default: none.

maximize
Toggle the maximized state. Default: none.

fullscreen
Toggles the fullscreen state. Default: none.

pipe-visible, pipe-scrollback, pipe-selected, pipe-command-output
Pipes the currently visible text, the entire scrollback, the cur-
rently selected text, or the last command's output to an external
tool. The syntax for this option is a bit special; the first part
of the value is the command to execute enclosed in "[]", followed
by the binding(s).

You can configure multiple pipes as long as the command strings are
different and the key bindings are unique.

Note that the command is not automatically run inside a shell; use
sh -c "command line" if you need that.

Example #1:
# Extract currently visible URLs, let user choose one (via
fuzzel), then launch firefox with the selected URL
pipe-visible=[sh -c "xurls | uniq | tac | fuzzel | xargs -r
firefox"] Control+Print

Example #2:
# Open scrollback contents in Emacs running in a new foot in-
stance
pipe-scrollback=[sh -c "f=$(mktemp) && cat - > $f && foot emac-
sclient -t $f; rm $f"] Control+Shift+Print

Default: none

show-urls-launch
Enter URL mode, where all currently visible URLs are tagged with a
jump label with a key sequence that will open the URL (and exit URL
mode). Default: Control+Shift+o.

show-urls-persistent
Similar to show-urls-launch, but does not automatically exit URL
mode after activating an URL. Default: none.

show-urls-copy
Enter URL mode, where all currently visible URLs are tagged with a
jump label with a key sequence that will place the URL in the clip-
board. Default: none.

regex-launch
Enter regex mode. This works exactly the same as URL mode; all
regex matches are tagged with a jump label with a key sequence that
will "launch" to match (and exit regex mode).

The name of the regex section must be specified in the key binding:

[regex:hashes]
regex=([a-fA-F0-9]{7,128})
launch=path-to-script-or-application ${match}

[key-bindings]
regex-launch=[hashes] Control+Shift+q
regex-copy=[hashes] Control+Mod1+Shift+q

Default: none.

regex-copy
Same as regex-copy, but the match is placed in the clipboard, in-
stead of "launched", upon activation. Default: none.

prompt-prev
Jump to the previous, currently not visible, prompt (requires shell
integration, see foot(1)). Default: Control+Shift+z.

prompt-next
Jump the next prompt (requires shell integration, see foot(1)). De-
fault: Control+Shift+x.

unicode-input
Input a Unicode character by typing its codepoint in hexadecimal,
followed by Enter or Space.

For example, to input the character (LATIN SMALL LETTER O WITH DI-
AERESIS, Unicode codepoint 0xf6), you would first activate this key
binding, then type: f, 6, Enter.

Another example: to input (SMILING FACE WITH HEART-SHAPED EYES,
Unicode codepoint 0x1f60d), activate this key binding, then type:
1, f, 6, 0, d, Enter.

Recognized key bindings in Unicode input mode:

• Enter, Space: commit the Unicode character, then exit this
mode.
• Escape, q, Ctrl+c, Ctrl+d, Ctrl+g: abort input, then exit this
mode.
• 0-9, a-f: append next digit to the Unicode's codepoint.
• Backspace: undo the last digit.

Note that there is no visual feedback while in this mode. This is
by design; foot's Unicode input mode is considered to be a fall-
back. The preferred way of entering Unicode characters, emojis etc
is by using an IME.

Default: Control+Shift+u.

quit
Quit foot. Default: none.

SECTION: search-bindings
This section lets you override the default key bindings used in scroll-
back search mode. The syntax is exactly the same as the regular key-
bindings.

cancel
Aborts the search. The viewport is restored and the primary selec-
tion is not updated. Default: Control+g Control+c Escape.

commit
Exit search mode and copy current selection into the primary selec-
tion. Viewport is not restored. To copy the selection to the regu-
lar clipboard, use Control+Shift+c. Default: Return KP_Enter.

find-prev
Search backwards in the scrollback history for the next match. De-
fault: Control+r.

find-next
Searches forwards in the scrollback history for the next match. De-
fault: Control+s.

cursor-left
Moves the cursor in the search box one character to the left. De-
fault: Left Control+b.

cursor-left-word
Moves the cursor in the search box one word to the left. Default:
Control+Left Mod1+b.

cursor-right
Moves the cursor in the search box one character to the right. De-
fault: Right Control+f.

cursor-right-word
Moves the cursor in the search box one word to the right. Default:
Control+Right Mod1+f.

cursor-home
Moves the cursor in the search box to the beginning of the input.
Default: Home Control+a.

cursor-end
Moves the cursor in the search box to the end of the input. De-
fault: End Control+e.

delete-prev
Deletes the character before the cursor. Default: BackSpace.

delete-prev-word
Deletes the word before the cursor. Default: Mod1+BackSpace Con-
trol+BackSpace.

delete-next
Deletes the character after the cursor. Default: Delete.

delete-next-word
Deletes the word after the cursor. Default: Mod1+d Control+Delete.

delete-to-start
Deletes search input before the cursor. Default: Ctrl+u.

delete-to-end
Deletes search input after the cursor. Default: Ctrl+k.

extend-char
Extend current selection to the right, by one character. Default:
Shift+Right.

extend-to-word-boundary
Extend current selection to the right, to the next word boundary.
Default: Control+w Control+Shift+Right.

extend-to-next-whitespace
Extend the current selection to the right, to the next whitespace.
Default: Control+Shift+w.

extend-line-down
Extend current selection down one line. Default: Shift+Down.

extend-backward-char
Extend current selection to the left, by one character. Default:
Shift+Left.

extend-backward-to-word-boundary
Extend current selection to the left, to the next word boundary.
Default: Control+Shift+Left.

extend-backward-to-next-whitespace
Extend the current selection to the left, to the next whitespace.
Default: none.

extend-line-up
Extend current selection up one line. Default: Shift+Up.

clipboard-paste
Paste from the clipboard into the search buffer. Default: Control+v
Control+y Control+Shift+v XF86Paste.

primary-paste
Paste from the primary selection into the search buffer. Default:
Shift+Insert.

unicode-input
Unicode input mode. See key-bindings.unicode-input for details. De-
fault: none.