Skip to content
Surge Docs

Customize Surge

Surge can be customized from the TUI or by editing files in its configuration directory.

Change settings

Section titled “Change settings”

Open the settings interface in the TUI, or use the config command:

Terminal window
surge config
surge config general.auto_resume true
surge config performance.stall_timeout default

surge config open opens the settings file in your configured editor. See the configuration reference for valid paths, values, defaults, and file locations.

Change keybindings

Section titled “Change keybindings”

Surge generates keymap.json on first start. Edit that file to change TUI shortcuts. Invalid or missing bindings fall back to the built-in defaults.

See Keymap configuration for the file format and platform-specific path.

Install a font

Section titled “Install a font”

Surge bundles JetBrains Mono Nerd Font Mono, but the terminal emulator chooses which font to display. Download fonts.zip from the latest release, install the font on your operating system, then select JetBrainsMono Nerd Font Mono in your terminal settings.

See Font installation for platform-specific steps.

Create or install a theme

Section titled “Create or install a theme”

Place a .toml theme file in Surge’s themes directory, or pass a path available to the application. Theme lookup checks a direct path/current directory, a local themes/ directory, and then the global themes directory.

See Custom themes for the file format, palette mapping, and adaptive light/dark themes.