This repository is meant to work with chriskempson/base16. It provides a simple template that can be used with the base16 color schemes to generate a functional config file for swaywm/sway, a tiling and dynamic window manager.

I imply, that since you are reading this you have already a working sway config. If not, please create one. Sway does not import settings from xresources yet like i3, but it can source a file via include command. We are going to use this feature here:

1. Paste include colorscheme in your config. colorscheme is a reference to file, which will contain your chosen theme.
2. Paste in your config:

# Basic color configuration using the Base16 variables for windows and borders.
# Property Name         Border  BG      Text    Indicator Child Border
client.focused          $base05 $base0D $base00 $base0D $base0D
client.focused_inactive $base01 $base01 $base05 $base03 $base01
client.unfocused        $base01 $base00 $base05 $base01 $base01
client.urgent           $base08 $base08 $base00 $base08 $base08
client.placeholder      $base00 $base00 $base05 $base00 $base00
client.background       $base07

3. If you use a statusbar, paste following block in the bar section in your config:

colors {
    background $base00
    separator  $base01
    statusline $base04

    # State             Border  BG      Text
    focused_workspace   $base05 $base0D $base00
    active_workspace    $base05 $base03 $base00
    inactive_workspace  $base03 $base01 $base05
    urgent_workspace    $base08 $base08 $base00
    binding_mode        $base00 $base0A $base00
}

include colorscheme should be pasted above the configs from points 2 and 3. An absolutely minimal example is shown in config file.

Now let's create a colorscheme file containing a theme. Since the file is referred to by name it should be placed in the same directory as your sway config. Let's pick default dark theme as example and install it via curl in ~/.config/sway/:

$ curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rkubosz/base16-sway/master/themes/base16-default-dark.config > ~/.config/sway/colorscheme

and reload config with shift+mod+c.