Structured Colors of AI

Flat UIs are for single-thread coding.
Structured colors are for directing agents that code.

I searched in vain for themes where functionally distinct areas are meaningfully colored. The best (and unique) match is the grandiose Showa Retro Themes.

This theme is a modification of Showa Retro Night Downtown and primarily a tribute to its author SUZUKI Tetsuya. Arigatou gozaimasu, sensei!

For those tired of flat, borderless, monochrome UI environments: the venerable author named his themes "Retro". Disagree: this is the future of agentic UI visual design.

What I've adjusted

I highly appreciate the overall idea and exquisite colors palette by master Suzuki, but my personal taste differs slightly. I've tried to modify as little as possible:

• The global base color #A93D20 is replaced with an almost identical, but much darker, #371106
• The activity panel now uses the former base color, #A93D20
• The panel background is #0A4E4E slightly lighter than #18444E

Historic and cultural background

Flat, monolithic, and monotone borderless design is not the result of competing trends. It is a deliberate decision: such design aims to support programmers' flow, focus, and concentration, making them more productive—specifically when typing code in the editor.

Leaving aside the effectiveness of this noble intent, by the end of 2026, faint doubts have emerged about whether concentrated typing remains the mainstream coding activity. (Hint: in the age of AI assistants and agents, it isn't.)

So why stick to an outdated visual layout when its raison d'être is disappearing—slowly and irreversibly? Agentic workflows are quite different; they require no less mental effort, but of a very different kind. Adding the mental load of manually distinguishing agentic, editor, navigation, and terminal windows, rather than relying on instant, subconscious color classification, is no longer a good idea.

Hopefully, in a couple of years, UI designers will announce a new, revolutionary structured look and sell it to customers at a premium. Good luck, guys! :))

Installation

1. Open VS Code
2. Click on the Extensions icon in the sidebar (or press Ctrl+Shift+X / Cmd+Shift+X)
3. Search for "Structured Colors of AI"
4. Click "Install"

Alternatively, you can install it directly from the VS Code Marketplace.

Applying Themes

1. Press Ctrl+K Ctrl+T (Windows/Linux) or Cmd+K Cmd+T (macOS) in VS Code
2. Select a theme that begins with "Structured Colors" from the theme list

Or:

1. Select File > Preferences > Color Theme
2. Choose a theme that begins with "Structured Colors"

Theme suggestions

Feel free to suggest any existing themes that fit this scope; I would be glad to reference them. You can also suggest a theme for further tuning.

Feedback

Please report bugs or feature requests on GitHub Issues.

If you enjoy these themes, please consider rating and reviewing them on the VS Code Marketplace.

Планов громадьЁ

Этим стулом мастер Гамбс открывает новую партию мебели... ну, в общем, вы поняли. Хочется добавить ещё варианты, прежде всего — чуть доработать некоторые из великолепных тем Мастера SUZUKI Tetsuya. Но увы! человек слаб, а обстоятельства могучи. Постараюсь в меру скромных сил.

Developer

Alexis Pokrovski alexis.pokrovski@mail.ru

MIT License