description: Everything in settings.json: themes, indentation, font size, go-to-definition modifiers and key bindings.¶

Settings¶

Everything Yara Code reads lives in one JSON file, editable from inside the editor (File → Settings, Cmd+, / Ctrl+,) or with anything else. The editor looks at the file once a second, so a change applies the moment it is saved — from either frontend, a script, or a hand edit — without a restart. It is written on first run to:

~/.config/ycode/settings.json

The file explains itself: every key is written out with a comment over it. The editor writes the whole file afresh when it saves a setting — a theme picked, a folder opened — so a comment of your own is best kept in a project's .ycode/settings.json, which the editor only reads.

// Yara Code settings. Every key is optional: leave one out and the built-in
// default applies.
{
  // Colour theme: "Dark+", "Light+", "Monokai". Also View → Theme.
  "theme": "Dark+",

  // Editor font size in points. Window frontend only: the terminal frontend
  // draws in whatever font the terminal itself uses.
  "font_size": 13.5,

  // How much further the wheel carries than the platform asks for. 1.0 is the
  // platform's own notch — three lines in a terminal.
  "scroll_speed": 1.5,

  "indent": {
    // "spaces" or "tabs". Also View → Indentation.
    "style": "spaces",
    // Spaces per level, and how wide a tab is drawn.
    "width": 4,
    // Follow the indentation a file already uses, falling back to the above.
    "detect_from_file": true
  },

  // Panels open at start.
  "show_sidebar": true,
  "show_terminal": true,

  // Modifier held while clicking an identifier to jump to its definition.
  "goto_modifiers": { "gui": ["cmd"], "tui": ["ctrl", "alt"] },

  // Modifier held while the pointer rests on a line to blame it.
  "blame_modifiers": { "gui": ["shift"], "tui": ["shift"] },

  // Key bindings per frontend; only what differs from the defaults is listed.
  "keys": { "gui": { "save": "Cmd+S" }, "tui": { "save": "Ctrl+S" } },

  // Folders offered by File → Open Recent, newest first.
  "recent_projects": ["/path/to/project"]
}

Per-project settings¶

A project can carry its own .ycode/settings.json at its root. Whatever it sets — indentation and theme are the usual reasons — is laid over the global file while that project is open, and nothing else changes. The folder is hidden from the navigator and from project search.

Field	What it does
`theme`	Name of the active theme, as the picker shows it.
`indent.width`	Spaces per level; `style` picks `spaces` or `tabs`.
`indent.detect_from_file`	When on, a file that already uses another width wins and these values are only the fallback.
`font_size`	The window's code font size; it takes effect the moment the file is saved. The terminal frontend draws in your terminal's own font, so it does not apply there.
`scroll_speed`	How much further the wheel and the trackpad carry than the platform asks for, in both frontends. `1.0` is the platform's own notch — three lines in a terminal — and the default `1.5` moves four rows where a terminal would move three. Held between `0.25` and `8`.
`show_sidebar`, `show_terminal`	Which panels are open at startup.
`goto_modifiers`	Which modifier turns a click into go-to-definition. A list, because terminals differ in which ones they deliver — and none deliver Cmd, which is why the terminal default is Ctrl or Alt.
`blame_modifiers`	Which modifier held under the pointer blames the line it rests on, in the status bar. Shift in both frontends by default: the other three are spoken for by go-to-definition in one or the other.
`keys`	Every binding, per frontend. See Key bindings.
`recent_projects`	Most recent first, capped at 15 — what Open Recent lists.

How the file is merged¶

Anything you leave out keeps its default, and key bindings are laid over the defaults — rebinding one key does not drop the rest.

Only the bindings that differ from the defaults are written back, so a later change to a default (or a newly added command) still reaches you.

A malformed file is reported in the status bar rather than silently ignored, and so is a binding you gave to two commands at once:

settings.json: tui Ctrl+X is bound to both cut and file_menu