Kong Strong Zero Blue

Cracked open at midnight. Electric cyan. No sugar. No fluff.

Inspired by the Kong Strong Zero — LIDL's sugar-free energy drink that hits harder than it has any right to. Same philosophy applied to your editor: a deep, cold dark that doesn't tire you out, an electric cyan that keeps you locked in, and zero visual noise to slow you down.

For developers who open a can at 11pm and ship by 2am.

Variants

Name	Best for
Kong Strong Zero Blue	Daily driver — balanced contrast
Kong Strong Zero Blue (Italic Comments)	Distinguishes comments from code at a glance
Kong Strong Zero Blue (Low Glow)	Bright rooms or high-refresh monitors

Install

From the Marketplace — search Kong Strong Zero Blue in the VS Code Extensions panel or visit the VS Code Marketplace.

Activate:

{
    "workbench.colorTheme": "Kong Strong Zero Blue"
}

Recommended pairings for the full experience:

{
    "editor.fontFamily": "'JetBrains Mono', 'Cascadia Code', 'Fira Code', monospace",
    "editor.fontLigatures": true,
    "editor.fontSize": 14,
    "editor.lineHeight": 1.7
}

The Palette

Role	Color	Hex
Background	Deep navy	`#0A0F14`
Foreground	Ice white	`#D6EFFF`
Keywords	Electric cyan	`#00CFFF`
Functions	Bright cyan	`#52DFFF`
Strings / Types	Soft cyan	`#4FDFFF`
Numbers	Pale cyan	`#7FE8FF`
Decorators	Amber gold	`#FFC857`
Parameters	Steel blue	`#8FA6B8`
Comments	Muted slate	`#4A6A80`
Errors	Vivid red	`#FF5C5C`
Added (git)	Lime green	`#4CD964`

Three accents, one identity: cyan for logic, gold for architecture, red for danger.

Design Philosophy

No pure black. The base is #0A0F14 — dark enough to disappear, warm enough not to strain.
Disciplined accent use. Cyan is reserved for language structure (keywords, operators, types). Everything else is near-white or muted steel — so accents mean something.
Gold marks what matters architecturally. Decorators, annotations, and class-level constructs get #FFC857 — the one warm color in a cold palette. Spot them immediately in a dense file.
Git is first-class. Added, modified, and deleted files each have a distinct, readable color in the sidebar and diff view.
Colorblind-safe. Structure is conveyed through contrast and hue variety, not red/green alone.

Screenshots

Show off your setup — tag #KongZeroBlue and share your screenshots.

Local Development

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Open in VS Code and press F5 to launch Extension Development Host
# Select "Kong Strong Zero Blue" from Preferences: Color Theme

# Validate JSON and scopes before packaging
npm run validate

# Package as .vsix
npm run package

# Install locally
code --install-extension kong-strong-zero-blue-*.vsix

Publishing

npm run publish:vsce

Validation Checklist

Developer: Inspect Editor Tokens and Scopes to verify TextMate scope targeting.
Test across: JavaScript/TypeScript, Python, Rust, Go, JSON, YAML, Markdown, HTML/CSS.
Verify: sidebar, terminal, diff view, search panel, peek view, and inline diagnostics.
Check focused and unfocused selection visibility.
Validate readability at both high and low screen brightness.

npm run validate

Contributing

Issues and PRs welcome at github.com/capmar/kong-theme.

If a language looks wrong, open an issue with a screenshot and the scope from Developer: Inspect Editor Tokens and Scopes.

MIT License