Marcus Dark
A near-black VS Code theme for long sessions—low glare, quiet surfaces, readable text, and saturated syntax colour where it matters.
Designed to stay out of the way
- Near-black, not high-contrast. Editor and terminal surfaces sit at
#060708, with darker navigation and restrained separators.
- Clear syntax hierarchy. Functions, keywords, types, constants, numbers, strings, and properties stay visibly distinct without drifting into pastel tones.
- Purposeful interaction states. Hovered, selected, focused, and active elements use separate surface levels instead of stacked outlines.
- A companion icon theme. Marcus Seti retains familiar file glyphs while lifting their colour and clarity against the dark Explorer.
- Built around IBM Plex Mono. The theme works with any monospace font, but its spacing and readability were tuned with IBM Plex Mono in mind.
Syntax palette
The syntax colours use exact values from the IBM Carbon palette:
| Role |
Colour |
| Foreground |
Carbon Gray 30 · #C6C6C6 |
| Comments |
Carbon Gray 50 · #8D8D8D |
| Functions |
Carbon Red 50 · #FA4D56 |
| Keywords |
Carbon Blue 40 · #78A9FF |
| Types and imports |
Carbon Purple 40 · #BE95FF |
| Constants and decorators |
Carbon Orange 40 · #FF832B |
| Numbers |
Carbon Yellow 30 · #F1C21B |
| Properties |
Carbon Cyan 40 · #33B1FF |
| Strings |
Carbon Green 40 · #42BE65 |
| Operators and regular expressions |
Carbon Teal 30 · #3DDBD9 |
Installation
- Open the Extensions view in VS Code.
- Search for Marcus Dark.
- Install the extension.
- Choose Marcus Dark from
Preferences: Color Theme.
- Choose Marcus Seti from
Preferences: File Icon Theme.
You can also install a packaged .vsix from the repository releases using Extensions: Install from VSIX... in the Command Palette.
Recommended settings
VS Code themes cannot change your editor font automatically. For the intended appearance, add:
{
"editor.fontFamily": "'IBM Plex Mono', Consolas, monospace",
"editor.fontSize": 14,
"editor.fontLigatures": true
}
Contributing
If a language scope, extension view, or workbench state looks wrong, please open an issue with a screenshot and the relevant language or extension name.
License
Marcus Dark is available under the MIT License. The companion file-icon theme includes Seti-derived assets; attribution is recorded in Third-Party Notices.
