diff --git a/modules/ui/indent-guides/config.el b/modules/ui/indent-guides/config.el
index cd5cb5aeb..d8128a898 100644
--- a/modules/ui/indent-guides/config.el
+++ b/modules/ui/indent-guides/config.el
@@ -5,8 +5,20 @@
   :init
   (setq highlight-indent-guides-method 'character)
   :config
-  (add-hook 'focus-in-hook #'highlight-indent-guides-auto-set-faces)
-  ;; `highlight-indent-guides' breaks in these modes
+  (defun +indent-guides-init-faces-h ()
+    (when (display-graphic-p)
+      (highlight-indent-guides-auto-set-faces)))
+
+  ;; HACK `highlight-indent-guides' calculates its faces from the current theme,
+  ;;      but is unable to do so properly in terminal Emacs, where it only has
+  ;;      access to 256 colors. So if the user uses a daemon we must wait for
+  ;;      the first graphical frame to be available to do.
+  (add-hook (if (daemonp)
+                'server-after-make-frame-hook
+              'doom-load-theme-hook)
+            #'+indent-guides-init-faces-h)
+
+  ;; `highlight-indent-guides' breaks when `org-indent-mode' is active
   (add-hook! 'org-indent-mode-hook
     (defun +indent-guides-disable-maybe-h ()
       (when highlight-indent-guides-mode