init-config

Initialize a configuration file for the Tree-sitter CLI

This command initializes a configuration file for the Tree-sitter CLI.

tree-sitter init-config

Configuration File Location

The configuration file is created in the “default” location for your platform:

• Unix: $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/tree-sitter/config.json or $HOME/.config/tree-sitter/config.json
• Windows: %APPDATA%\tree-sitter\config.json or $HOME\AppData\Roaming\tree-sitter\config.json

The CLI will work without a config file, falling back on default values for each configuration option.

When you run the command, it will print the location of the created file so you can easily find and modify it.

Configuration Options

The configuration file is a JSON file with the following fields:

parser-directories

Specifies where to look for Tree-sitter grammars on your filesystem. The tree-sitter highlight command uses this to automatically determine which language to use.

{
  "parser-directories": [
    "/Users/my-name/code",
    "~/other-code",
    "$HOME/another-code"
  ]
}

Any folder within these directories whose name begins with tree-sitter- will be treated as a Tree-sitter grammar repository.

theme

Defines colors for syntax highlighting. The Tree-sitter highlighting system annotates code with logical “highlight names” like function.method, type.builtin, keyword, etc.

The theme value is an object whose keys are dot-separated highlight names and values are styling parameters.

Highlight Names

A theme can contain multiple keys that share a common subsequence:

• variable and variable.parameter
• function, function.builtin, and function.method

Styling is determined based on the longest matching theme key. For example, function.builtin.static would match function.builtin rather than function.

Styling Values

Values can be:

• Integers from 0 to 255 (ANSI terminal color IDs)
• Hex strings like "#e45649" (RGB colors)
• Color names like "red", "black", "purple", "cyan"
• Objects with keys:
  • color - Integer or string as above
  • underline - Boolean
  • italic - Boolean
  • bold - Boolean

Example Theme

{
  "theme": {
    "function": 26,
    "operator": {
      "bold": true,
      "color": 239
    },
    "variable.builtin": {
      "bold": true
    },
    "variable.parameter": {
      "underline": true
    },
    "type.builtin": {
      "color": 23,
      "bold": true
    },
    "keyword": 56,
    "type": 23,
    "number": {
      "bold": true,
      "color": 94
    },
    "constant": 94,
    "attribute": {
      "color": 124,
      "italic": true
    },
    "comment": {
      "color": 245,
      "italic": true
    },
    "constant.builtin": {
      "color": 94,
      "bold": true
    }
  }
}

parse-theme

Controls colors for the pretty-printed CST output from tree-sitter parse with the -c/--cst option.

Omitting a field will cause the relevant text to be rendered with its default color.

Colors are specified as RGB arrays [r, g, b] with values 0-255.

{
  "parse-theme": {
    "node-kind": [20, 20, 20],
    "node-text": [255, 255, 255],
    "field": [42, 42, 42],
    "row-color": [255, 255, 255],
    "row-color-named": [255, 130, 0],
    "extra": [255, 0, 255],
    "error": [255, 0, 0],
    "missing": [153, 75, 0],
    "line-feed": [150, 150, 150],
    "backtick": [0, 200, 0],
    "literal": [0, 0, 200]
  }
}

Modifying the Config

After creating the config file, you can edit it manually with any text editor. The CLI will automatically use the updated settings.