Butter
A warm golden theme with a cozy companion. Easy on your eyes, hard to uninstall.
Why Butter
Most dark themes are cold: neon purple on pure black, or blue-gray on dark navy. Beautiful for screenshots. Tiring after three hours.
Butter is built on deep amber and gold — the color of warm lamp light, not a server room. Every decision asks: does this hurt after four hours?
- Warm, not harsh. Golden amber instead of neon-on-black. Middle-ground contrast that doesn't fatigue.
- Three variants. Dark for evening, Light for daytime, Soft for 2am.
- Butter Bear. A tiny companion in your status bar that reacts to what you're doing. Optional, opt-out, never annoying.
- Complete coverage. Every token defined. JS/TS, Python, Rust, Go, Ruby, Java, C/C++, CSS, HTML, Markdown, JSON, YAML, SQL — no surprises in a new language.
- Semantic highlighting. Modern VS Code semantic token support fully implemented.
Themes
Butter Dark
The flagship. Deep amber backgrounds (#1e1b12), gold syntax, warm terminal. Designed for evening and long sessions. The status bar stays gold — always.
Butter Light
Warm parchment. Like writing on good paper under a lamp. Background #fdf8ec (cream, not white). Dark amber syntax on warm beige. Status bar stays gold for brand consistency.
Butter Soft
Same palette as Dark, pulled toward neutral. Everything desaturated ~30%. For 2am coding when even Dark feels like too much. Only the cursor stays bright gold — so you always know where you are.
Installation
Via Marketplace:
- Open VS Code
- Go to Extensions (
Cmd+Shift+X / Ctrl+Shift+X)
- Search "Butter"
- Install, select theme, done.
Via Command Palette:
Ctrl+Shift+P → Preferences: Color Theme → Butter Dark / Butter Light / Butter Soft
Switch between variants:
Ctrl+Shift+P → Butter: Switch Butter Theme
Butter Bear (Companion)
Butter Bear lives in your status bar and reacts to what you're doing.
| What you're doing |
Bear's state |
| First activation of the day |
Morning greeting |
| Actively typing |
Coding |
| Paused for ~10 seconds |
Thinking |
| Away for a while |
Resting |
| Saved with no errors |
Celebrating |
| Nothing happening |
Idle |
Bear is on by default. To disable:
"butter.companion.enabled": false
Click the Bear in the status bar to see the current mood.
Configuration
| Setting |
Type |
Default |
Description |
butter.companion.enabled |
boolean |
true |
Enable/disable Butter Bear |
butter.companion.activityTimeout |
number |
30000 |
Ms of inactivity before resting state |
butter.companion.morningGreeting |
boolean |
true |
Show morning notification |
butter.companion.showMessages |
boolean |
true |
Show state-change notifications |
Commands
| Command |
Description |
butter.switchTheme |
Quick-pick between Dark, Light, Soft |
butter.toggleCompanion |
Show or hide Butter Bear |
butter.companionMood |
Display current Bear mood |
Access via Ctrl+Shift+P → type "Butter".
Fonts That Pair Well
These are free and look great with Butter's warm palette:
- JetBrains Mono — Excellent ligatures, very readable. Download
- Fira Code — Classic ligature font, warm at any size. Download
- Cascadia Code — Microsoft's offering, clean and modern. Download
Recommended settings:
"editor.fontFamily": "JetBrains Mono, Fira Code, Cascadia Code, monospace",
"editor.fontLigatures": true,
"editor.fontSize": 14,
"editor.lineHeight": 1.6
Contributing
See CONTRIBUTING.md for how to edit themes, test changes, and submit pull requests.
Bug reports and feature requests: GitHub Issues
License
MIT — see LICENSE
Built with warmth. Designed for the long session.
