From 711a8b8fdf12ee611c8b514c25fb783df2f54372 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Alex Trinker <a.trinker@trever.io>
Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2025 06:57:12 +0200
Subject: [PATCH] allow skin to be selected via K9S_SKIN env var (#3356)

* allow skin to be set via env var K9S_SKIN

* use `return` after skin selection

* add K9S_SKIN to README
---
 README.md             |  4 ++--
 internal/ui/config.go | 12 +++++++++++-
 2 files changed, 13 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 5ee642ee..5ca29107 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -438,7 +438,7 @@ You can now override the context portForward default address configuration by se
       # Toggles reactive UI. This option provide for watching on disk artifacts changes and update the UI live Defaults to false.
       reactive: false
       # By default all contexts will use the dracula skin unless explicitly overridden in the context config file.
-      skin: dracula # => assumes the file skins/dracula.yaml is present in the  $XDG_DATA_HOME/k9s/skins directory
+      skin: dracula # => assumes the file skins/dracula.yaml is present in the  $XDG_DATA_HOME/k9s/skins directory. Can be overriden with K9S_SKIN.
       # Allows to set certain views default fullscreen mode. (yaml, helm history, describe, value_extender, details, logs) Default false
       defaultsToFullScreen: false
       # Show full resource GVR (Group/Version/Resource) vs just R. Default: false.
@@ -1039,7 +1039,7 @@ Example: Dracula Skin ;)
 You can style K9s based on your own sense of look and style. Skins are YAML files, that enable a user to change the K9s presentation layer. See this repo `skins` directory for examples.
 You can skin k9s by default by specifying a UI.skin attribute. You can also change K9s skins based on the context you are connecting too.
 In this case, you can specify a skin field on your cluster config aka `skin: dracula` (just the name of the skin file without the extension!) and copy this repo
-`skins/dracula.yaml` to `$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/k9s/skins/` directory.
+`skins/dracula.yaml` to `$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/k9s/skins/` directory. You can also change the skin by setting `K9S_SKIN` in the environment, e.g. `export K9S_SKIN="dracula"`.
 
 In the case where your cluster spans several contexts, you can add a skin context configuration to your context configuration.
 This is a collection of {context_name, skin} tuples (please see example below!)
diff --git a/internal/ui/config.go b/internal/ui/config.go
index cca88fa3..0845e5a9 100644
--- a/internal/ui/config.go
+++ b/internal/ui/config.go
@@ -195,6 +195,14 @@ func (c *Configurator) activeSkin() (string, bool) {
 		return skin, false
 	}
 
+	if env_skin := os.Getenv("K9S_SKIN"); env_skin != "" {
+		if _, err := os.Stat(config.SkinFileFromName(env_skin)); err == nil {
+			skin = env_skin
+			slog.Debug("Loading env skin", slogs.Skin, skin)
+			return skin, true
+		}
+	}
+
 	if ct, err := c.Config.K9s.ActiveContext(); err == nil && ct.Skin != "" {
 		if _, err := os.Stat(config.SkinFileFromName(ct.Skin)); err == nil {
 			skin = ct.Skin
@@ -202,13 +210,15 @@ func (c *Configurator) activeSkin() (string, bool) {
 				slogs.Skin, skin,
 				slogs.Context, c.Config.K9s.ActiveContextName(),
 			)
+			return skin, true
 		}
 	}
 
-	if sk := c.Config.K9s.UI.Skin; skin == "" && sk != "" {
+	if sk := c.Config.K9s.UI.Skin; sk != "" {
 		if _, err := os.Stat(config.SkinFileFromName(sk)); err == nil {
 			skin = sk
 			slog.Debug("Loading global skin", slogs.Skin, skin)
+			return skin, true
 		}
 	}