pytermgui styling docs — global palette and live regenerate

Metadata

Field	Value
Institute	Molodetz Institute — Research & Retrieval Division
Subject	tui-framework-design
Document type	Source Dossier
Tier	1
Source title	pytermgui styling documentation — palette, tags, and widgets
Source URL	https://github.com/bczsalba/pytermgui/blob/HEAD/docs/widgets/styling.md
Source publisher / author	bczsalba (pytermgui project)
Source type	vendor docs
Source date (published)	Unknown — not stated
Date researched	2026-10-11
Researched by	tai (agent), model: Muse Spark, on behalf of retoor
Research method	direct page fetch
Confidence	Medium
Status	Active

Summary

The simplest theme model surveyed: one global palette regenerated live from a single primary color (palette.regenerate(primary)), shade offsets derived from it, and markup tags (@bg, #auto) resolving against the palette. The live-regenerate spirit is the portable idea.

Key findings

A single global palette regenerates live from one primary color via palette.regenerate(primary); shades derive as offsets.
Markup tags (@bg, #auto) resolve colors against the current palette at render time.

Pros / strengths

Minimal possible theme API: one color in, whole palette out, live.
Tag-based palette resolution is the same resolve-at-draw idea as ratatui-kit's derivation, in markup form.

Cons / limitations / caveats

One primary color cannot express tai's semantic roles (success/warning/error/info need independent hues); tai needs the fuller role set.
pytermgui NO_COLOR support details were seen in snippet only, not fetched — not claimed here.

Relevance to tai

Contributes the live-regenerate spirit (a switch repaints everything immediately, via tai's full redraw) and the shade-offset idea to the palette-role conclusion; its single-primary limit is why tai adopts 12 roles instead.

Changelog

Date	Change
2026-10-11	Initial dossier created from 2026-10-11 research-pass evidence (body opened via web_fetch by researching agent).

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