Reproduction steps

The theme settings in the Settings UI dialog don’t work until you set/reset the Theme Mode.

To reproduce

1. Open settings.json and reset it. (Delete everything except the {} brackets.)
2. Open the settings UI dialog.
3. Go to Appearance > Theme and choose a different light or dark theme.

Expected results:

• I should be able to pick a theme.

Actual results:

• Theme doesn’t change in the settings UI.
• Theme isn’t written to settings.json.

Workaround:

4. Go to Appearance > Theme and change the Theme Mode setting to Static.
5. Choose a different theme.

Alternative Workaround:

4. In settings.json, add "theme": "One Dark".

Once you’ve done either of these workarounds, it now starts to work and you can make any changes you like (including changing Theme Mode back to Dynamic).

Current vs. Expected behavior

Current behavior: You can’t change the theme until a different setting has been changed.
Expected behavior: I should be able to change the theme even if I haven’t toggled "Theme Mode".

Zed version and system specs

Zed: v0.215.3-90+fda162bf3d9a11d18e07cbf2b488829450135d34 (Zed)
OS: macOS 26.1
Memory: 32 GiB
Architecture: aarch64

Attach Zed log file

No response

Relevant Zed settings

{
  // Zed settings//zed.dev/docs/configuring-zed
  //
  // To see all of Zed's default settings without changing your
  // custom settings, run `zed: open default settings` from the
  // command palette (cmd-shift-p / ctrl-shift-p)
}

(for AI issues) Model provider details

No response

If you are using WSL on Windows, what flavor of Linux are you using?

None