Location

Nova stores settings at settings.toml under your OS config directory:

• Windows: %APPDATA%\nova\settings.toml
• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/nova/settings.toml
• Linux: ~/.config/nova/settings.toml

Internally, this is dirs::config_dir().join("nova").join("settings.toml").

File Lifecycle

• If settings.toml does not exist, Nova writes an embedded default config.
• If settings.toml exists but TOML parsing fails, Nova overwrites it with defaults.

This means a malformed edit can be “repaired” by reset-to-default (but you may lose changes).

Defaults

Nova ships embedded defaults (slightly different on macOS).

Non-macOS default excerpt:

[general]
editor = "nano"
bell = "none"

[status-bar]
visible = true
date-format = "%b %d"
time-format = "%H:%M:%S"

[theme.font]
size = 16
family = "FiraCode Nerd Font"

[theme.colors]
background = "#0D0D0D"
foreground = "#E5E5E5"
accent = "#3ECF8E"
foreground-muted = "#666666"
border = "#FFFFFF12"
cursor = "#3ECF8E"

[keybindings]
new-tab = "ctrl+t"
close-tab = "ctrl+w"
next-tab = "ctrl+tab"
prev-tab = "ctrl+shift+tab"
paste = "ctrl+v"
copy = "ctrl+shift+c"
open-palette = "ctrl+k"

[ai]
provider = "anthropic"
model = "claude-haiku-4-5-20251001"
api_key = ""

Reference

[general]

• editor (string): External editor command.
• bell (string): One of none, audio, blink.
• shells (array of strings, optional): If set and non-empty, Nova uses this list instead of auto-detect.
• window-controls (string): One of traffic-lights or system.

Example:

[general]
editor = "code -w"
bell = "none"
shells = ["zsh", "bash"]
window-controls = "system"

[status-bar]

• visible (bool)
• date-format (string)
• time-format (string)

Example:

[status-bar]
visible = true
date-format = "%Y-%m-%d"
time-format = "%H:%M"

[theme.font]

• size (number)
• family (string)

Example:

[theme.font]
size = 15
family = "FiraCode Nerd Font"

[theme.colors]

All values are hex strings.

• #RRGGBB is supported.
• #RRGGBBAA is supported (alpha channel).

Keys:

• background
• foreground
• accent
• foreground-muted
• border
• cursor

Example:

[theme.colors]
background = "#0D0D0D"
foreground = "#E5E5E5"
accent = "#3ECF8E"
foreground-muted = "#666666"
border = "#FFFFFF12"
cursor = "#3ECF8E"

[keybindings]

See Keybindings for syntax and examples.

Keys:

• new-tab
• close-tab
• next-tab
• prev-tab
• paste
• copy
• open-palette

[ai]

See AI for behavior and troubleshooting.

• provider (string): anthropic or openai
• model (string)
• api_key (string)
• base_url (string, optional): Override API base URL (useful for proxies).

Example:

[ai]
provider = "openai"
model = "gpt-4.1-mini"
api_key = "..."
base_url = "https://api.openai.com/v1/"