--- title: How to Choose Colors for Your CLI Applications · Luna’s Blog description: CLI applications need careful color selection to remain readable across different terminal themes. Testing against popular themes (Basic, Tango, Solarized)... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-choose-colors-for-your-cli-applications-luna-s-blog-x2oqdb1mz twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: How to Choose Colors for Your CLI Applications · Luna’s Blog | daily.dev og:description: CLI applications need careful color selection to remain readable across different terminal themes. Testing against popular themes (Basic, Tango, Solarized)... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-choose-colors-for-your-cli-applications-luna-s-blog-x2oqdb1mz og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/x2oqDB1MZ.png og:image:alt: How to Choose Colors for Your CLI Applications · Luna’s Blog og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # How to Choose Colors for Your CLI Applications · Luna’s Blog **[Hacker News](https://daily.dev/sources/hn)** · 7 min read · 1 upvotes · 1 comments ## Summary CLI applications need careful color selection to remain readable across different terminal themes. Testing against popular themes (Basic, Tango, Solarized) reveals that only 11 out of 32 possible color settings work reliably. Solarized's unique 16-color palette mapping causes bright colors to appear gray or invisible. The safest approach is avoiding bright colors (except bright red, green, and cyan), skipping brwhite for emphasis, and being cautious with bold text since some terminals make bold text bright automatically. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@theacademe** · 0 upvotes > A brilliant bit of practical research. ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Terminals should generate the 256-color palette](https://daily.dev/posts/terminals-should-generate-the-256-color-palette-j5fzrp1zs) · Lobsters · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [I am sorry, but everyone is getting syntax highlighting wrong](https://daily.dev/posts/i-am-sorry-but-everyone-is-getting-syntax-highlighting-wrong-qi3y4r0pn) · tonsky.me · 101 upvotes · 27 comments --- Tags: [#ux](https://daily.dev/tags/ux), [#cli](https://daily.dev/tags/cli), [#accessibility](https://daily.dev/tags/accessibility) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-choose-colors-for-your-cli-applications-luna-s-blog-x2oqdb1mz) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"How to Choose Colors for Your CLI Applications · Luna’s Blog","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-choose-colors-for-your-cli-applications-luna-s-blog-x2oqdb1mz","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-choose-colors-for-your-cli-applications-luna-s-blog-x2oqdb1mz"},"datePublished":"2026-01-29T17:24:04.476Z","dateModified":"2026-01-29T17:24:25.830Z","description":"CLI applications need careful color selection to remain readable across different terminal themes. 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