Atomica Brackets
Rainbow bracket highlighting for Visual Studio Code. Nested parentheses, square brackets, and curly braces each get a distinct color per nesting level, with per-type controls and one-click random palettes that always stay readable.
The VS Code sibling of the Atomica Brackets JetBrains plugin.
Features
- Color-coded nesting for
(), [], {} (and optionally <>)
- Six rotating colors inspired by the One Dark palette
- Shuffle Colors: generates a random palette using golden-angle hue spacing, with every color contrast-checked (5:1 WCAG target) against your theme's background so it stays readable
- Per-bracket-type enable/disable
- Optional per-type depth tracking, so each bracket kind cycles its own colors
- Skips brackets inside strings and comments for common languages
Commands
Open the Command Palette (Cmd+Shift+P / Ctrl+Shift+P) and search for:
- Atomica Brackets: Toggle Rainbow Brackets
- Atomica Brackets: Shuffle Colors
- Atomica Brackets: Reset Default Colors
Settings
| Setting |
Default |
Description |
atomicaBrackets.enabled |
true |
Enable rainbow bracket highlighting |
atomicaBrackets.roundBrackets |
true |
Highlight ( ) |
atomicaBrackets.squareBrackets |
true |
Highlight [ ] |
atomicaBrackets.curlyBrackets |
true |
Highlight { } |
atomicaBrackets.angleBrackets |
false |
Highlight < > (off by default: comparisons and generics use the same characters) |
atomicaBrackets.perTypeDepth |
false |
Track nesting depth separately per bracket type |
atomicaBrackets.colors |
One Dark palette |
Hex colors cycled per nesting level |
atomicaBrackets.maxFileSize |
500000 |
Skip files larger than this many characters (0 = no limit) |
Note on VS Code's built-in bracket colorization
VS Code ships with bracket pair colorization enabled by default (editor.bracketPairColorization.enabled). Atomica Brackets draws its colors on top of it, so for consistent results you may want to turn the built-in one off:
"editor.bracketPairColorization.enabled": false
What Atomica Brackets adds over the built-in: per-bracket-type enable/disable and contrast-safe random palette shuffling.
Development
npm install
npm run compile # build to out/
npm test # unit tests (Node test runner)
npm run package # produce the .vsix
Press F5 in VS Code to launch an Extension Development Host.
License
MIT — see LICENSE.
