diff --git a/common/common.cmake b/common/common.cmake
index b8b6e969..d307d886 100644
--- a/common/common.cmake
+++ b/common/common.cmake
@@ -1,3 +1,8 @@
+# enable color diagnostics with ninja
+if (CMAKE_GENERATOR STREQUAL Ninja AND CMAKE_CXX_COMPILER_ID MATCHES "GNU|Clang")
+    add_compile_options(-fdiagnostics-color=always)
+endif()
+
 function(gpt4all_add_warning_options target)
     if (MSVC)
         return()
diff --git a/gpt4all-backend/CMakeLists.txt b/gpt4all-backend/CMakeLists.txt
index 546d4a60..0f9e9b16 100644
--- a/gpt4all-backend/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/gpt4all-backend/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -1,7 +1,8 @@
 cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.29)
-
 project(gpt4all-backend VERSION 0.1 LANGUAGES CXX)
 
+include(../common/common.cmake)
+
 find_package(Qt6 6.8 COMPONENTS Core REQUIRED)
 
 add_subdirectory(../deps "${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/common_deps")
diff --git a/gpt4all-backend/src/CMakeLists.txt b/gpt4all-backend/src/CMakeLists.txt
index bde94ce5..4963b8e5 100644
--- a/gpt4all-backend/src/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/gpt4all-backend/src/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -1,5 +1,3 @@
-include(../../common/common.cmake)
-
 set(TARGET gpt4all-backend)
 
 add_library(${TARGET} STATIC
diff --git a/gpt4all-chat/CMakeLists.txt b/gpt4all-chat/CMakeLists.txt
index 11984992..e02c5766 100644
--- a/gpt4all-chat/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/gpt4all-chat/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -1,7 +1,5 @@
 cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.25)  # for try_compile SOURCE_FROM_VAR
 
-include(../common/common.cmake)
-
 set(APP_VERSION_MAJOR 3)
 set(APP_VERSION_MINOR 10)
 set(APP_VERSION_PATCH 1)
@@ -10,6 +8,8 @@ set(APP_VERSION "${APP_VERSION_BASE}-dev0")
 
 project(gpt4all VERSION ${APP_VERSION_BASE} LANGUAGES CXX C)
 
+include(../common/common.cmake)
+
 if (CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX_INITIALIZED_TO_DEFAULT)
   set(CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX ${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/install CACHE PATH "..." FORCE)
 endif()