Add UI themes (Dark, Light, Midnight, Sunset)

Four preset color themes, switchable from Profile settings with instant
preview and server-side persistence (User.theme, applied via a data-theme
attribute the CSS custom-property overrides in themes.css key off). Dark
stays the existing DarkSingularity palette and default. Light is a genuine
new light-mode design; Midnight is a higher-contrast OLED-friendly dark
variant; Sunset swaps in a warm amber/coral accent family.

Custom theme building (pick-your-own-colors) is out of scope for this
pass -- presets only.

Also: fixed the PATCH /api/auth/me handler to only apply fields actually
present in the request body. It previously always overwrote display_name
unconditionally, which happened to be harmless when it was the only
field on ProfileUpdate but would have silently cleared it on any
theme-only update. And switched two hardcoded hex colors
(.btn-primary:hover, .role-badge-admin) to token-derived color-mix()
values so they adapt across themes instead of staying fixed to the
original cyan/violet palette.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

backend/alembic/versions/e849b2efb79b_user_theme_preference.py

@@ -0,0 +1,32 @@
+"""user theme preference
+
+Revision ID: e849b2efb79b
+Revises: 880f080648de
+Create Date: 2026-08-15 21:53:44.914731
+
+"""
+from typing import Sequence, Union
+
+from alembic import op
+import sqlalchemy as sa
+
+
+# revision identifiers, used by Alembic.
+revision: str = 'e849b2efb79b'
+down_revision: Union[str, Sequence[str], None] = '880f080648de'
+branch_labels: Union[str, Sequence[str], None] = None
+depends_on: Union[str, Sequence[str], None] = None
+
+
+def upgrade() -> None:
+    """Upgrade schema."""
+    # ### commands auto generated by Alembic - please adjust! ###
+    op.add_column('users', sa.Column('theme', sa.String(length=20), nullable=True))
+    # ### end Alembic commands ###
+
+
+def downgrade() -> None:
+    """Downgrade schema."""
+    # ### commands auto generated by Alembic - please adjust! ###
+    op.drop_column('users', 'theme')
+    # ### end Alembic commands ###

backend/app/models/user.py

@@ -18,6 +18,7 @@ class User(Base):
     is_site_admin: Mapped[bool] = mapped_column(Boolean, default=False, nullable=False)
     is_active: Mapped[bool] = mapped_column(Boolean, default=True, nullable=False)
     display_name: Mapped[str | None] = mapped_column(String(50))
+    theme: Mapped[str | None] = mapped_column(String(20))
     avatar_filename: Mapped[str | None] = mapped_column(String(64))
     avatar_content_type: Mapped[str | None] = mapped_column(String(50))
     created_at: Mapped[datetime] = mapped_column(

backend/app/routers/auth.py

@@ -74,8 +74,15 @@ async def update_profile(
     current_user: User = Depends(get_current_user),
     db: AsyncSession = Depends(get_db),
 ) -> User:
-    display_name = data.display_name.strip() if data.display_name else None
-    current_user.display_name = display_name or None
+    # Only apply fields actually present in the request body -- a call that
+    # only wants to change the theme must not clobber display_name back to
+    # None, and vice versa.
+    updates = data.model_dump(exclude_unset=True)
+    if "display_name" in updates:
+        display_name = updates["display_name"].strip() if updates["display_name"] else None
+        current_user.display_name = display_name or None
+    if "theme" in updates:
+        current_user.theme = updates["theme"]
     await db.commit()
     await db.refresh(current_user)
     return current_user

backend/app/schemas/user.py

@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 import uuid
 from datetime import datetime
+from typing import Literal
 
 from pydantic import BaseModel, ConfigDict, EmailStr, Field
 
@@ -19,12 +20,19 @@ class UserRead(BaseModel):
     is_bot: bool
     is_site_admin: bool
     display_name: str | None
+    theme: str | None
     avatar_filename: str | None
     created_at: datetime
 
 
 class ProfileUpdate(BaseModel):
+    # Both fields are independently optional-and-settable -- the router
+    # only applies keys actually present in the request body
+    # (model_dump(exclude_unset=True)), so a call that only wants to change
+    # the theme doesn't clobber display_name back to None, and vice versa.
     display_name: str | None = Field(default=None, max_length=50)
+    # Kept in sync with frontend/src/styles/themes.css's theme blocks.
+    theme: Literal["dark", "light", "midnight", "sunset"] | None = Field(default=None)
 
 
 class UserDirectoryRead(BaseModel):

backend/tests/test_profile.py

@@ -53,6 +53,44 @@ async def test_display_name_too_long_rejected(client, db_session):
     assert resp.status_code == 422
 
 
+async def test_update_theme_persists(client, db_session):
+    await register_and_login(client, db_session, username=_unique("alice"))
+
+    resp = await client.patch("/api/auth/me", json={"theme": "midnight"})
+    assert resp.status_code == 200, resp.text
+    assert resp.json()["theme"] == "midnight"
+
+    me = await client.get("/api/auth/me")
+    assert me.json()["theme"] == "midnight"
+
+
+async def test_invalid_theme_rejected(client, db_session):
+    await register_and_login(client, db_session, username=_unique("alice"))
+
+    resp = await client.patch("/api/auth/me", json={"theme": "not-a-real-theme"})
+    assert resp.status_code == 422
+
+
+async def test_updating_theme_does_not_clobber_display_name(client, db_session):
+    await register_and_login(client, db_session, username=_unique("alice"))
+    await client.patch("/api/auth/me", json={"display_name": "Alice A."})
+
+    resp = await client.patch("/api/auth/me", json={"theme": "light"})
+    assert resp.status_code == 200
+    assert resp.json()["display_name"] == "Alice A."
+    assert resp.json()["theme"] == "light"
+
+
+async def test_updating_display_name_does_not_clobber_theme(client, db_session):
+    await register_and_login(client, db_session, username=_unique("alice"))
+    await client.patch("/api/auth/me", json={"theme": "sunset"})
+
+    resp = await client.patch("/api/auth/me", json={"display_name": "Alice A."})
+    assert resp.status_code == 200
+    assert resp.json()["theme"] == "sunset"
+    assert resp.json()["display_name"] == "Alice A."
+
+
 async def test_avatar_upload_succeeds_and_persists(client, db_session):
     await register_and_login(client, db_session, username=_unique("alice"))