Perhaps, like me, you're torn between two Base16 themes. "Tomorrow Night," after all, features a nice dark background ... but drab text. And "Tomorrow Night Eighties" has nice bright text ... but the background is drab. Well, the year is 1991, and you don't have to choose anymore.
This repo has two things in it basically: a vscode theme and a set of Tomorrow Night 1991 themes compatible with other programs.
Everything that follows is machine-generated documentation:
Tomorrow Night 1991 for VS Code
Revisions by Kera (GPT-6 Astra):
- 2026-09-09: Added the title-bar compatibility fix in version 0.4.3 and wrote
this section.
Later revisions by Kera (GPT-6.1 Sol):
- 2026-10-10: Improved control and CodeLens contrast, distinguished focused
list selections, and included Amandeep's comment and Markdown list colors in
version 0.4.4.
- 2026-10-10: Clarified installation instructions and the differences between
the VS Code colors and the port palettes in version 0.5.1.
Install Tomorrow Night 1991 from the VS Code Marketplace,
then open Preferences: Color Theme and choose Tomorrow Night 1991.
Comments are italic blue-gray (#7cafc2), and Markdown lists are green
(#99cc99). These styles are built into the theme. Local token and workbench
customizations take precedence; scope them to [Tomorrow Night 1991] when
they are intended for this theme.
The Command Center and agent status indicator use VS Code's title-bar foreground and translucent background defaults. This keeps the project name, chat button, and session count readable when extensions such as Peacock color individual workspaces. Menu-bar selections also inherit the title-bar foreground and use a translucent hover background.
VS Code 1.136.1 renders the separate Open in Agents Window cube icon as a fixed SVG with a grayscale filter. Its artwork has no color-theme token.
Revisions by Claude Opus 5:
- 2026-09-21: Added the WezTerm, Pygments, and Claude Code variants, wrote
this section, and corrected the stale
.vscodeignore paths.
- 2026-09-21: Added the Emacs and Neovim variants and documented the
Base16 slot mapping.
- 2026-09-21: Added the btop, broot, Midnight Commander, VisiData, nnn,
and delta variants.
- 2026-09-21: Fixed readability: the Emacs terminal color source, broot's
near-invisible selected line, and the low-contrast Midnight Commander menus.
- 2026-09-21: Gave the Emacs terminal menus palette colors instead of
Emacs's yellow-on-blue defaults.
These ports share the Base16 palette described below. VS Code adds editor
interface colors and syntax styling, including the comment and Markdown list
styles described above.
| Directory |
Format |
Notes |
themes/ |
VS Code |
Packaged as the VSIX and published to the Marketplace. |
_tmTheme/ |
TextMate / Sublime Text |
Drop into Sublime's Packages/User. |
_itermcolors/ |
iTerm2 |
0.2 supersedes 0.1, adding light-mode variants and darkening ANSI 0 to #000000. |
_wezterm/ |
WezTerm |
Copy to ~/.config/wezterm/colors/ and set config.color_scheme = 'Tomorrow Night 1991'. |
_pygments/ |
Pygments |
Run _pygments/install <env-prefix>; see the note below. |
_claude-code/ |
Claude Code |
Copy to ~/.claude/themes/ and select it as custom:tomorrow-night-1991. |
_emacs/ |
Emacs |
Needs base16-theme. Put it on custom-theme-load-path. In a terminal, also see the note below. |
_neovim/ |
Neovim |
A palette table for a palette-driven colorscheme plugin, not a standalone colorscheme. |
_btop/ |
btop |
Copy to ~/.config/btop/themes/ and set color_theme. Truecolor. |
_broot/ |
broot |
Copy to ~/.config/broot/skins/ and point a luma: dark import at it. Truecolor. |
_mc/ |
Midnight Commander |
Copy to ~/.local/share/mc/skins/ and set skin= in ini. Needs a truecolor terminal. |
_visidata/ |
VisiData |
Install as ~/.visidatarc. Nearest xterm-256 indices; VisiData draws through curses. |
_nnn/ |
nnn |
Source it, or copy the two exports into your shell profile. xterm-256 indices. |
_delta/ |
delta |
Config only — delta reads bat's theme directory, so the tmTheme serves it directly. |
The terminal palettes share one ANSI set: black #000000, red #f2777a, green
#99cc99, yellow #ffcc66, blue #6699cc, magenta #cc99cc, cyan #66cccc,
white #ffffff, with the brights repeating the normals rather than lightening
them.
The Claude Code file sets interface colors only — prompt borders, diff
backgrounds, status and permission indicators. It carries no syntax-highlighting
tokens.
Pygments resolves built-in styles through its own _mapping.py rather than
through plugin entry points alone, so the style has to be registered in that
table. The install script does this, and needs re-running after a Pygments
upgrade or an environment rebuild.
As a Base16 scheme
The core palette is Base16 Tomorrow Night Eighties with base00, base01,
and base02 taken from Base16 Tomorrow Night. That is the whole idea of the
theme stated in sixteen slots: the darker background and greys of the one, the
brighter accents of the other.
The table describes the Base16 slots used by the ports. VS Code uses the
blue-gray comment override described above in place of the base03 gray.
| Slot |
Color |
From |
Role |
base00 |
#1d1f21 |
Tomorrow Night |
Background |
base01 |
#282a2e |
Tomorrow Night |
Current line |
base02 |
#373b41 |
Tomorrow Night |
Selection |
base03 |
#999999 |
Eighties |
Comments |
base04 |
#b4b7b4 |
Eighties |
Dark foreground |
base05 |
#cccccc |
Eighties |
Foreground |
base06 |
#e0e0e0 |
Eighties |
Light foreground |
base07 |
#ffffff |
Eighties |
Lightest |
base08 |
#f2777a |
Eighties |
Red |
base09 |
#f99157 |
Eighties |
Orange |
base0A |
#ffcc66 |
Eighties |
Yellow |
base0B |
#99cc99 |
Eighties |
Green |
base0C |
#66cccc |
Eighties |
Cyan |
base0D |
#6699cc |
Eighties |
Blue |
base0E |
#cc99cc |
Eighties |
Purple |
base0F |
#a3685a |
Eighties |
Brown |
Any Base16 template can therefore generate a port for an editor this repository
does not cover yet.
A note on color depth
The VS Code, TextMate, iTerm2, WezTerm, Emacs, Neovim, btop, broot, and
Midnight Commander formats support full RGB colors. VisiData and nnn draw
through 256-color interfaces; their files use nearby xterm-256 colors, with
the intended hex value in a comment beside each one.
Emacs in a terminal
base16 themes decide where terminal colors come from via
base16-theme-256-color-source, which defaults to terminal. That setting
emits ANSI color names rather than colors, on the assumption that the
terminal's own palette is already the same scheme. If it is not, the results
are not subtle: mode-line becomes a literal brightyellow bar and
mode-line-inactive a brightgreen one.
Unless you drive your terminal palette from base16-shell, set this before any
theme loads:
(setq base16-theme-256-color-source 'colors)
A graphical Emacs is unaffected; it uses the hex values directly.
The theme also sets menu, tty-menu-enabled-face, tty-menu-disabled-face,
and tty-menu-selected-face, which base16 leaves alone. Emacs defaults those
to yellow on blue with a red selection bar, which no theme survives. A
graphical Emacs on macOS uses the native menu bar and ignores them.
Tomorrow Day 1991
Revisions by Claude Opus 5.5:
- 2026-10-06: Added the light sibling in six formats and wrote this
section.
Later revisions by Kera (GPT-6.1 Sol):
- 2026-10-10: Added the VS Code edition, its readability adjustments, and
this edition's usage and build notes.
A light sibling, for a white page. It is included in the VS Code extension
and available in the six formats listed below.
The VS Code edition uses darker text colors for readability on tinted
interface surfaces and the current line. Its italic comments are blue-gray
(#476a7a), and its Markdown lists are green (#37723e). Editor selections
use pale blue (#dceaff); focused lists use a stronger blue (#a3cafe) with
dark text. Focused notebook cells have blue borders.
Choose Tomorrow Day 1991 from Preferences: Color Theme. It is available
in extension version 0.5.0 and later. Local Night customizations should be
scoped to [Tomorrow Night 1991] so their light text and dark notebook borders
do not override Day's colors. See VS Code's theme customization syntax.
To rebuild the VS Code Day edition from this repository, run
npm run build:day on macOS with Node.js installed. The script reads the Day
TextMate palette with plutil and combines it with the Night syntax rules.
To write a review copy elsewhere, pass the destination:
npm run build:day -- /path/to/tomorrow-day-1991.json.
The following table gives the palettes used by the original ports.
Day uses Tomorrow's light hues, darkened where needed so every text color
reaches a contrast of at least 4.5:1 on #ffffff. The VS Code edition's
comment and selection colors are given above.
| Role |
Day ports |
Night ports |
| Background |
#ffffff |
#1d1f21 |
| Current line |
#eef0f3 |
#282a2e |
| Selection |
#a3cafe |
#373b41 |
| Comments |
#74767a |
#999999 |
| Foreground |
#27292c |
#cccccc |
| Red |
#c82829 |
#f2777a |
| Orange |
#b95a14 |
#f99157 |
| Yellow |
#8a6d00 |
#ffcc66 |
| Green |
#3c7c43 |
#99cc99 |
| Cyan |
#1b7c83 |
#66cccc |
| Blue |
#4271ae |
#6699cc |
| Purple |
#8959a8 |
#cc99cc |
| Brown |
#a06658 |
#a3685a |
| File |
Notes |
_tmTheme/tomorrow-day-1991.tmTheme |
The Night file's scope rules, in the same order. No value has an alpha channel: bat paints such a value opaque. |
_btop/tomorrow-day-1991.theme |
Meter ramps run from the hue to darker tones of it, where Night's run from a pale tint up to the hue. btop prints some numbers in ramp colors, so every step is readable text. |
_neovim/tomorrow-day-1991.lua |
The same thirteen keys. Set background=light as well. rusty draws line numbers in selection and has a dark diff_background default; both need overriding on a white page, as the file's header explains. |
_nnn/colors-day.sh |
Nearest xterm-256 indices that reach 4.5:1 on white. |
_delta/gitconfig-day |
light = true is required, because delta lists a theme it does not know as dark. Sets pale diff backgrounds to match. |
_claude-code/tomorrow-day-1991.json |
Select it as custom:tomorrow-day-1991. |
To have bat follow a light and a dark terminal, name both themes with
--theme-light and --theme-dark in its config.
