Local configuration overrides

Depending on the application used it is possible to override configuration. Here is the list:

Vim overrides

Vim configuration can be overridden using the following options:

g:powerline_config_overrides
Dictionary, recursively merged with contents of powerline/config.json.
g:powerline_theme_overrides__{theme_name}
Dictionary, recursively merged with contents of powerline/themes/vim/theme_name.json. Note that this way you can’t redefine some value (e.g. segment) in list, only the whole list itself: only dictionaries are merged recursively.
g:powerline_config_paths
Paths list (each path must be expanded, ~ shortcut is not supported). Points to the list of directories which will be searched for configuration. When this option is present, none of the other locations are searched.
g:powerline_no_python_error
If this variable is set to a true value it will prevent Powerline from reporting an error when loaded in a copy of vim without the necessary Python support.

Powerline script overrides

Powerline script has a number of options controlling powerline behavior. Here VALUE always means “some JSON object”.

-c KEY.NESTED_KEY=VALUE or --config=KEY.NESTED_KEY=VALUE

Overrides options from powerline/config.json. KEY.KEY2.KEY3=VALUE is a shortcut for KEY={"KEY2": {"KEY3": VALUE}}. Multiple options (i.e. -c K1=V1 -c K2=V2) are allowed, result (in the example: {"K1": V1, "K2": V2}) is recursively merged with the contents of the file.

If VALUE is omitted then corresponding key will be removed from the configuration (if it was present).

-t THEME_NAME.KEY.NESTED_KEY=VALUE or --theme_option=THEME_NAME.KEY.NESTED_KEY=VALUE

Overrides options from powerline/themes/ext/THEME_NAME.json. KEY.NESTED_KEY=VALUE is processed like described above, {ext} is the first argument to powerline script. May be passed multiple times.

If VALUE is omitted then corresponding key will be removed from the configuration (if it was present).

-p PATH or --config_path=PATH
Sets directory where configuration should be read from. If present, no default locations are searched for configuration. No expansions are performed by powerline script itself, but -p ~/.powerline will likely be expanded by the shell to something like -p /home/user/.powerline.

Zsh/zpython overrides

Here overrides are controlled by similarly to the powerline script, but values are taken from zsh variables.

POWERLINE_CONFIG
Overrides options from powerline/config.json. Should be a zsh associative array with keys equal to KEY.NESTED_KEY and values being JSON strings. Pair KEY.KEY1 VALUE is equivalent to {"KEY": {"KEY1": VALUE}}. All pairs are then recursively merged into one dictionary and this dictionary is recursively merged with the contents of the file.
POWERLINE_THEME_CONFIG
Overrides options from powerline/themes/shell/*.json. Should be a zsh associative array with keys equal to THEME_NAME.KEY.NESTED_KEY and values being JSON strings. Is processed like the above POWERLINE_CONFIG, but only subdictionaries for THEME_NAME key are merged with theme configuration when theme with given name is requested.
POWERLINE_CONFIG_PATHS
Sets directories where configuration should be read from. If present, no default locations are searched for configuration. No expansions are performed by powerline script itself, but zsh usually performs them on its own if you set variable without quotes: POWERLINE_CONFIG_PATHS=( ~/example ). You should use array parameter or the usual colon-separated POWERLINE_CONFIG_PATHS=$HOME/path1:$HOME/path2.

Ipython overrides

Ipython overrides depend on ipython version. Before ipython-0.11 you should pass additional keyword arguments to setup() function. After ipython-0.11 you should use c.Powerline.KEY. Supported KEY strings or keyword argument names:

config_overrides
Overrides options from powerline/config.json. Should be a dictionary that will be recursively merged with the contents of the file.
theme_overrides
Overrides options from powerline/themes/ipython/*.json. Should be a dictionary where keys are theme names and values are dictionaries which will be recursively merged with the contents of the given theme.
paths
Sets directories where configuration should be read from. If present, no default locations are searched for configuration. No expansions are performed thus you cannot use paths starting with ~/.

Prompt command

In addition to the above configuration options you can use $POWERLINE_COMMAND environment variable to tell shell or tmux to use specific powerline implementation and $POWERLINE_CONFIG to tell zsh or tmux where powerline-config script is located. This is mostly useful for putting powerline into different directory.

Note

$POWERLINE_COMMAND appears in shell scripts without quotes thus you can specify additional parameters in bash. In tmux it is passed to eval and depends on the shell used. POSIX-compatible shells, zsh, bash and fish will split this variable in this case.

If you want to disable prompt in shell, but still have tmux support or if you want to disable tmux support you can use variables $POWERLINE_NO_{SHELL}_PROMPT/$POWERLINE_NO_SHELL_PROMPT and $POWERLINE_NO_{SHELL}_TMUX_SUPPORT/$POWERLINE_NO_SHELL_TMUX_SUPPORT (substitute {SHELL} with the name of the shell (all-caps) you want to disable support for (e.g. BASH) or use all-inclusive SHELL that will disable support for all shells). These variables have no effect after configuration script was sourced (in fish case: after powerline-setup function was run). To disable specific feature support set one of these variables to some non-empty value.

If you do not want to disable prompt in shell, but yet do not want to launch python twice to get above lines you do not use in tcsh you should set $POWERLINE_NO_TCSH_ABOVE or $POWERLINE_NO_SHELL_ABOVE variable.

If you do not want to see additional space which is added to the right prompt in fish in order to support multiline prompt you should set $POWERLINE_NO_FISH_ABOVE or $POWERLINE_NO_SHELL_ABOVE variables.