Toucan

Color-code your VS Code windows by repository, and see at a glance which one you're in. In the spirit of Peacock and Kingfisher, colors are configured once, by repository name, in your own user settings. Toucan never writes anything into the opened repository.

The Command Center follows the focused window; the status bar always shows each window's own color.

• The Command Center (the search bar in the title bar) takes the focused window's repository color.
• Every window, focused or not, shows a glyph and the repository name in that color on the status bar.
• Opt-in extras: a color block in the secondary sidebar, and an experimental colored emoji in the search bar.
• One setting for every repository you open, set through commands with a live preview, or by hand.

Features

VS Code has no per-window color API, so Toucan layers a few signals. Repositories without a Toucan color get none of them.

Command Center color

The Command Center takes the focused window's repository color. Toucan writes it to your user-level workbench.colorCustomizations when a window gains focus, and that setting is shared by every window: the other windows' Command Centers show the same background, with their text and border dimmed while they're unfocused. Each window's own color stays on its status bar, and on its sidebar block or search emoji if those are on. Switching to another window with a Toucan color replaces it at once; a window whose repository has no color clears it, and so does leaving VS Code, after a short delay. The other Command Center colors (text, hover, border, the unfocused look) are derived from the background so they stay readable; toucan.repos can override any of them.

Status bar indicator

Every window shows the repository's glyph and name on the left of the status bar, in the repository color. It needs no settings write, so it works in windows that aren't focused. Click it to set a color, or hover it for a swatch, the color and links to Set Color, Preset, Glyph and Clear.

Sidebar block

An opt-in block in the secondary sidebar shows the repository's glyph large, with its name underneath, in the repository color. Turn it on with toucan.sidebarBlock.enabled or Toggle Sidebar Block, choose how strongly it's colored with toucan.sidebarBlock.style, and when it shows with toucan.sidebarBlock.visibility.

When the block goes off (its repository loses its color, or you turn the setting off), Toucan closes the secondary sidebar only if it opened it itself, which only happens in unfocused mode. A secondary sidebar you opened stays open.

Search emoji (experimental)

Turn on toucan.experimental.searchEmoji for a colored emoji in the Command Center label, in every window, focused or not. It relies on internal VS Code behavior that may break in any release.

• Consent. It needs two variables of its own, ${toucanRepoLead} and ${toucanRepoEmoji}, in your window.title, so Toucan asks once before changing that setting in your user settings. Declining turns the emoji off again. A workspace that sets its own window.title won't show the emoji.
• The look. The emoji leads the label while a file is open ("🟦 file.ts — webshop") and sits in front of the folder name when none is ("🟦 webshop"). It's the nearest of nine colored squares to the repository color; the circle glyph gets circles and the heart glyph gets hearts.
• Restore. Turning the emoji off restores your previous window.title, unless you've edited it since.
• Uninstall. If Toucan is disabled or uninstalled with the emoji still on, the two variables stay empty: the title shows no emoji and no repeated name, and you can remove them from your settings whenever you like.
• Your own ${activeRepositoryName}. If your own window.title uses ${activeRepositoryName}, it now shows source control's repository name again, as without Toucan; Toucan asks to add its own variable in front.

The agents control offer

In VS Code 1.139, the experimental setting chat.agentsControl.enabled defaults to "compact", which replaces the Command Center with an agent status box that has no background. Toucan can then only color its border and text. Set it to "badge" (keeps the agent badge) or "hidden" for the full color. Toucan offers to switch it to "badge" until you answer, and never changes it without asking. If you choose Not now, it doesn't ask again in that profile; closing the notification asks again in a later session. When a workspace sets the setting itself, Toucan doesn't ask.

Commands

Run them from the Command Palette, or from the status bar item: click it for Set Color, hover it for the rest.

Set Color

Toucan: Set Color for This Repo takes any CSS color: #e91e63, rebeccapurple, oklch(0.6 0.15 30). The status bar previews it as you type; nothing is saved until you press Enter, and Escape leaves the saved color as it was. The color must be opaque. It warns when a color may be hard to see on the status bar, without stopping you from saving it.

Pick Preset Color

Toucan: Pick Preset Color offers 16 toucan-themed colors, each with a swatch in the repository's glyph, and previews the one you're on. The current color is marked, and so is any preset that may be hard to see on the status bar. A picked preset is stored as its hex color.

Set Glyph

Toucan: Set Glyph picks the status bar shape, previewed as you move through the list: one of 17 in Toucan's own style, in four groups. Shapes: square, bar, pill, circle. Toucan's world: toucan, sun, leaf, drop, moon. Characters: alien, ghost, robot, cat. Fun & dev: bolt, heart, star, rocket. The default is square. A repository needs a color first.

Clear Color

Toucan: Clear Color removes the repository's entry from toucan.repos. If the entry holds more than a color (overrides, a glyph, a sidebar setting), it asks first and lists them. When the last entry goes, the toucan.repos setting goes with it, and so does Toucan's part of workbench.colorCustomizations: an empty setting isn't left behind, unless a comment of yours is inside it.

Toggle Sidebar Block

Toucan: Toggle Sidebar Block shows or hides the sidebar block. If the block is turned off, it offers to turn it on. Closing the block this way counts as your own close in always mode, and opening it again forgets that close. A repository needs a color first.

Settings

All of Toucan's settings apply from user settings only, never from a repository's .vscode/settings.json, and they are shared across all VS Code profiles.

toucan.repos

Colors per repository, keyed by workspace folder name: the directory name, or the name a .code-workspace file gives the folder. In a multi-root window, the first folder is used. Repositories without an entry get no colors. The commands above write this setting for you; you can also edit it by hand.

// user settings.json
"toucan.repos": {
  "webshop": "#e91e63",          // a color string sets the background, the rest is derived
  "toucan": {
    "background": "#1b5e20",   // required
    "foreground": "#ffffff",   // optional overrides
    "glyph": "heart",          // optional, default "square"
    "sidebarBlock": "unfocused"
  }
}

A value is either a color string, the Command Center background with everything else derived, or an object:

• background (required): the Command Center background.
• foreground, activeBackground, activeForeground, border, activeBorder, inactiveForeground, inactiveBorder (optional): override the Command Center's derived commandCenter.* colors. Colors derived from one you override build on your value.
• glyph (optional): the status bar glyph, default square (see Set Glyph).
• sidebarBlock (optional): always or unfocused, overriding toucan.sidebarBlock.visibility for this repository.

toucan.sidebarBlock.enabled

Shows the sidebar block in the secondary sidebar, for repositories with a color. Off by default.

toucan.sidebarBlock.style

How strongly the sidebar block is colored: full (default) is the solid repository color, as in the sidebar block image; muted is a faint tint with the glyph in full color and the name in the theme's text color.

toucan.sidebarBlock.visibility

When the sidebar block is shown. A repository's own sidebarBlock in toucan.repos overrides it.

• always (default) reveals the block on startup. Once you close it, or switch the secondary sidebar to another view, it stays closed in this workspace until you open it again with Toggle Sidebar Block.
• unfocused reveals it when the window loses focus, and closes the secondary sidebar again on focus if Toucan opened it. If another view such as Chat was open in the secondary sidebar, it is closed too.

toucan.experimental.searchEmoji

Shows the search emoji in the Command Center label. Off by default. Toucan asks before it changes window.title.

All settings

Good to know

Toucan owns every top-level commandCenter.* key in your user-level workbench.colorCustomizations and never touches other keys. Any commandCenter.* colors you had there before installing Toucan stay until Toucan first applies a color in that profile. From then on they are replaced on focus and removed when a window clears its color, so copy them somewhere first if you want to keep them.

Theme-scoped blocks such as "[Default Dark Modern]": { "commandCenter.background": … } are yours and Toucan leaves them alone. VS Code applies them on top of the top-level keys, so while that theme is active they override Toucan's Command Center colors.

With Settings Sync, the focus colors can reach other machines, where nothing may clear them. Add "settingsSync.ignoredSettings": ["workbench.colorCustomizations"] to keep them local (this also stops syncing your other color customizations).

Toucan edits toucan.repos and its commandCenter.* keys in place, so comments in your settings file survive. In a few cases it falls back to VS Code's own settings write, which drops comments inside that setting: when the setting isn't in the file yet, while your settings file has unsaved changes, with an unusual profile layout, or when you switch windows in the second before VS Code has picked up the previous window's change.

With profiles that share settings but keep separate global state, windows in different profiles don't know about each other. Switching between them can briefly clear the Command Center color before the focused window applies it again.

If a window crashes while focused and you uninstall Toucan before opening VS Code again, its commandCenter.* colors stay in your settings. Remove those keys from workbench.colorCustomizations by hand.

Install

Install Toucan from the Visual Studio Marketplace: in VS Code, open the Extensions view and search for Toucan, or run:

code --install-extension marco-daniel.toucan

Each version's VSIX is also on its GitHub release, with its SHA-256 and a build attestation. To build or work on Toucan, see the repository README.

License

MIT

Bundled third-party code and its licenses are listed in THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md.