Pick Theme

Standard theme picker for the insight-wave ecosystem. Provides a single, consistent theme selection experience used by all plugins that produce visual output — slides, dashboards, web narratives, big pictures, storyboards, and HTML reports.

Why This Exists

Without a centralized picker, every visual skill implements its own theme discovery and selection logic. This leads to inconsistent UX (different skills show different theme lists), missed themes (some skills only scan one directory), and duplicated code. This skill is the one place where theme discovery and selection happens.

Theme Sources

The picker scans two directories and merges the results:

Source	Location	Purpose
Standard	$CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT/themes/	Ships with cogni-workspace. Always available. Contains cogni-work and any other bundled themes.
Workspace	$COGNI_WORKSPACE_ROOT/themes/	User-created themes via manage-themes. Project-specific brand themes.

If both directories contain a theme with the same slug, the workspace version takes priority (the user's customization wins). The _template/ directory is always skipped.

How to Use

Step 1: Discover Available Themes

Run the discovery script to get a JSON array of all available themes:

python3 "$CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT/skills/pick-theme/scripts/discover-themes.py"

The script outputs a JSON array sorted by relevance: workspace themes first (newest first), then standard themes. Each entry contains:

{
  "slug": "cogni-work",
  "name": "Cogni Work",
  "description": "A bold, modern theme pairing electric chartreuse with deep black foundations.",
  "primary": "#111111",
  "accent": "#C8E62E",
  "background": "#FAFAF8",
  "font": "DM Sans Bold",
  "path": "/absolute/path/to/themes/cogni-work/theme.md",
  "source": "standard",
  "mtime": 1741564800.0
}

The mtime field is the file modification timestamp (Unix epoch). The script pre-sorts results so the first entry is always the best default candidate — no additional sorting needed.

Step 2: Present the Picker

Present discovered themes via AskUserQuestion. Build the options from the discovery output. Each option should show the theme name plus a compact summary (primary color, accent color, font).

Rules for building the picker:

• Show up to 4 themes as AskUserQuestion options (the tool's maximum)
• If more than 4 themes exist, take the first 4 from the discovery output — the script already sorts by relevance (workspace first, newest first), so the top 4 are the best candidates
• The first option is the recommended default — add "(Recommended)" to its label
• The "Other" escape hatch (built into AskUserQuestion) lets users type a custom theme path
• If only 1 theme exists, skip the picker entirely and use it directly — tell the user which theme is being applied

AskUserQuestion structure (must match the tool's exact schema):

{
  "questions": [{
    "question": "Which theme would you like to use?",
    "header": "Theme",
    "multiSelect": false,
    "options": [
      {
        "label": "Cogni Work (Recommended)",
        "description": "#111111 + #C8E62E · DM Sans Bold · standard"
      },
      {
        "label": "Digital X",
        "description": "#0D3B4F + #00BCD4 · Inter Bold · workspace"
      }
    ]
  }]
}

Option format: label = theme name, description = {primary} + {accent} · {font} · {source}. Keep a mental map of label → path from the discovery output so you can resolve the user's selection back to the absolute theme path.

Step 3: Resolve Selection

• If the user picked a listed theme → use the path from the discovery output
• If the user typed a custom path via "Other" → validate the path exists and contains a theme.md
• Read the selected theme.md to confirm it's valid (has at minimum a Color Palette section)

Step 4: Return the Theme Path

The output of this skill is the absolute path to the selected theme.md file. The calling skill uses this path to read theme tokens and apply them to its output.

Store and communicate these three values — they form the return contract that downstream skills depend on:

Field	Value	Example
theme_path	Absolute path to theme.md	/Users/.../themes/cogni-work/theme.md
theme_name	Human-readable name from the H1	Cogni Work
theme_slug	Directory name (kebab-case)	cogni-work

Downstream skills receive theme_path and read design tokens directly from the file. For Python-based scripts, pass it as --theme <theme_path>. For skill-to-skill handoffs, include it in the calling context.

Integration Guide for Downstream Skills

Any skill that produces themed output should use pick-theme instead of implementing its own theme resolution. Replace inline theme scanning with a reference to this skill.

Before (each skill doing its own thing):

Scan themes/*/theme.md, present via AskUserQuestion. Otherwise use default.

After (delegating to pick-theme):

Use cogni-workspace:pick-theme to let the user select a theme.
The skill returns the absolute path to the chosen theme.md.
Read the theme.md and extract design tokens for your output.

Skip Conditions

The picker can be skipped when:

• The caller already has a theme_path parameter (explicit theme from upstream)
• The caller is running in non-interactive/auto mode
• There's only one theme available (auto-select it)

In these cases, just validate the provided path and proceed.

Stale Path Detection

After running the discovery script, if the result is empty and COGNI_WORKSPACE_ROOT is set:

1. Check if the COGNI_WORKSPACE_ROOT directory actually exists on disk
2. If it doesn't exist, warn the user: "Workspace paths in settings.local.json appear stale (pointing to a previous session). Run /manage-workspace in update mode to regenerate paths."
3. The script prints WARNING lines to stderr when it detects this — check stderr output

You can also pass the workspace root explicitly via CLI to bypass stale env vars:

python3 "$CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT/skills/pick-theme/scripts/discover-themes.py" --workspace-root "$COGNI_WORKSPACE_ROOT"

Fallback Behavior

If no themes are found at all (neither standard nor workspace):

1. Warn the user: "No themes found. Would you like to create one with /manage-themes, or continue with default styling?"
2. If continuing without a theme, return an empty path — the downstream skill should use its own hardcoded fallback

If the discovery script fails (missing python3, permission issues):

1. Fall back to manual Glob scanning with the path parameter set to the base directory:
   • Standard themes: pattern */theme.md, path $CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT/themes
   • Workspace themes: pattern */theme.md, path $COGNI_WORKSPACE_ROOT/themes
2. Parse theme names from H1 lines
3. Present via AskUserQuestion as usual