0011. Each app keeps its own skins folder, ~/.config/<app>/skins

Date: 2026-10-13

Status

Accepted. The user asked for it: "each app should look at their own, not the patina folder, thats the whole point". Supersedes the shared folder in ADR-0004.

Context

ADR-0004 gave every app one shared folder, ~/.config/patina/skins/, and the apps' skin menus copied built-ins into it and opened it. UnAmp had opened its own ~/.config/unamp/skins/ before the Patina port, and the user's skins were all still there. So its menu opened an empty folder, and a skin made for one app showed up in all of them. Skins are how an app gets a look of its own (ADR-0007), so the user wants each app's skins to be its own.

Decision

• skin::app_dir(app) is ~/.config/<app>/skins, named after the app's config folder. Apps load from it, and the skin menu's Copy built-in skins and Open skins folder use it.
• Apps don't read ~/.config/patina/skins/. skin::shared_dir is deprecated.
• The format stays shared. A skin file copied into another app's folder works there, with that app's [app.<name>] section.
• The gallery uses ~/.config/patina-gallery/skins.

Consequences

• Each app's menu opens the folder of skins it actually shows, and a skin changes one app.
• Using a skin in several apps means copying it into each, and edits don't carry across.
• Skins left in ~/.config/patina/skins/ stop loading; they have to be moved. None existed on the user's machine when this was decided.