Clay Terminal

VS Code color themes inspired by a coral terminal aesthetic — dark and light variants, built from real warm-gray/coral design tokens. Coral accent (#D97757), semantic highlighting, bracket-pair colors, diff/merge colors, consistent error/warning marks across the squiggle, gutter, and scrollbar.

• Clay Terminal — dark, near-black warm background
• Clay Terminal Light — light, warm off-white background
• Clay Terminal High Contrast / Clay Terminal Light High Contrast — accessibility-focused variants with stronger borders and higher-contrast text
• Clay Terminal Icons — a matching file icon theme (90+ languages/file types) plus a scoped product icon theme (chevrons, folders, git glyphs), included in this same extension (no separate install)

Pairs well with a clean monospace font like JetBrains Mono or Berkeley Mono, though that's a personal editor setting, not something this extension can install for you.

Screenshots

Dark	Light

Install (local dev)

Package and install the .vsix rather than symlinking — VS Code doesn't reliably resolve an icon theme's image assets through a symlinked dev extension.

npx @vscode/vsce package

Command Palette → Extensions: Install from VSIX... → select the generated file, reload VS Code, then Command Palette → Preferences: Color Theme to pick a color theme, Preferences: File Icon Theme → Clay Terminal Icons for the file icons, and Preferences: Product Icon Theme → Clay Terminal Icons for the UI glyphs. (None of these pickers have a default keybinding.)

A Get Started with Clay Terminal walkthrough (Command Palette → Welcome: Open Walkthrough...) also walks through all three pickers — it's the fastest way to make sure both icon themes are actually turned on, since installing the extension only applies the color theme automatically.

Recommended settings

Optional settings.json tweaks that pair well with the coral accent and warm-gray palette:

{
  "editor.fontFamily": "'JetBrains Mono', 'Berkeley Mono', Menlo, monospace",
  "editor.cursorStyle": "line",
  "editor.cursorBlinking": "solid",
  "editor.minimap.enabled": false,
  "editor.bracketPairColorization.enabled": true,
  "editor.guides.bracketPairs": true,
  "workbench.iconTheme": "clay-terminal-icons",
  "workbench.productIconTheme": "clay-terminal-product-icons"
}

None of this is required — the themes and icon themes work with default settings.

Recommended extensions

Not part of this theme, but pairs well with it — established per-language formatters/linters plus one extension that makes the theme's error/warning colors more visible:

// .vscode/extensions.json
{
  "recommendations": [
    "esbenp.prettier-vscode",   // Prettier — JS/TS/CSS/JSON
    "charliermarsh.ruff",       // Ruff — Python lint + format
    "golang.go",                // gofmt — Go
    "rust-lang.rust-analyzer",  // rustfmt — Rust
    "usernamehw.errorlens"      // inline error/warning highlighting
  ]
}

// settings.json
{
  "editor.formatOnSave": true,
  "[javascript][typescript][css][json]": {
    "editor.defaultFormatter": "esbenp.prettier-vscode"
  },
  "[python]": {
    "editor.defaultFormatter": "charliermarsh.ruff"
  },
  "[go]": {
    "editor.defaultFormatter": "golang.go"
  }
}

Error Lens reads the same editorError/editorWarning colors this theme already sets, so its full-line highlight, gutter mark, and scrollbar mark inherit the theme's red/amber split automatically — no extra configuration needed.

Shell prompt theme

Not a VS Code setting — a Starship prompt preset for your actual terminal (integrated or standalone), using the same coral accent and warm-gray neutrals: terminal/starship.toml.

curl -o ~/.config/starship.toml https://raw.githubusercontent.com/MadhuS-1605/clay-terminal/main/terminal/starship.toml

(Merge it by hand instead if you already have a starship.toml you want to keep.) Not bundled in the .vsix — a VS Code extension can't install a shell config for you.

An Oh My Posh theme using the same palette is also available: terminal/ohmyposh.json.

curl -o ~/.config/ohmyposh/clay-terminal.json https://raw.githubusercontent.com/MadhuS-1605/clay-terminal/main/terminal/ohmyposh.json
oh-my-posh init pwsh --config ~/.config/ohmyposh/clay-terminal.json | Invoke-Expression  # PowerShell
# oh-my-posh init bash --config ~/.config/ohmyposh/clay-terminal.json  # bash — add to ~/.bashrc
# oh-my-posh init zsh --config ~/.config/ohmyposh/clay-terminal.json   # zsh — add to ~/.zshrc

Also not bundled in the .vsix for the same reason as the Starship preset.