Theme Consolidation Plan

Currently, built-in themes in Fresh are defined in two ways: some are hardcoded in Rust source code (src/view/theme.rs), while others are loaded from JSON files. This creates a "split-brain" problem where the source of truth is divided, making maintenance difficult and leading to inconsistencies (e.g., the Theme Editor plugin not seeing Rust-defined themes).

This plan outlines a holistic approach to unify theme management.

1. Single Source of Truth: Embedded JSON

All built-in themes (Dark, Light, High Contrast, Nostalgia) will be moved to JSON files in the themes/ directory.

• Storage: themes/*.json
• Embedding: Use include_str! in Rust to embed these JSON files directly into the binary.
• Loading: Themes will be deserialized from the embedded JSON strings at runtime.

2. Automated Schema Validation

To ensure that JSON themes stay in sync with the ThemeFile structure defined in Rust:

• Build-time/Test-time Validation: A Rust test will iterate over all embedded themes and attempt to deserialize them into the ThemeFile struct.
• CI Enforcement: If a developer adds a new field to the Theme schema but fails to update the JSON files, the CI test will fail.

3. API-Driven Theme Discovery

The Plugin API will be updated to allow plugins (like the Theme Editor) to discover built-in themes without needing to scan the filesystem.

• New API Method: getBuiltinThemes() will return a list of available built-in theme names and their JSON content (or a way to fetch the content).
• Benefit: This removes the requirement to distribute a themes/ folder alongside the binary, as all built-in themes are part of the binary itself.

4. Implementation Steps

1. Extraction: Programmatically extract existing Rust-defined themes (dark, light, high-contrast, nostalgia) into themes/*.json files.
2. Standardization: Ensure all JSON files follow the latest ThemeFile schema.
3. Refactoring Rust:
   • Add include_str! for each theme in src/view/theme.rs.
   • Replace hardcoded color definitions in Theme::dark(), Theme::light(), etc., with logic that loads from the embedded JSON.
4. Validation Test: Implement the test_builtin_themes_match_schema test.
5. Plugin Update: Update plugins/theme_editor.ts to use the new discovery mechanism.