Cold Boot

A dark VS Code color theme and a matching file icon theme with a
Y2K techno-noir look, borrowed from early-2000s hacker workstations.

What's inside · Install · Color theme · Icons · Development

Cold Boot color theme and Cold Boot Icons in VS Code, with a TypeScript file open

Cold Boot Icons enlarged to 48px and at native 16px

What's inside

One extension, two themes. You can use them together or on their own.

Theme	What it is	Where to enable it
Cold Boot	Dark color theme for the editor and the whole workbench	Preferences: Color Theme
Cold Boot Icons	48 file icons and 92 folder icons	Preferences: File Icon Theme

Install

Open the Extensions view in VS Code, search for Cold Boot and click Install. Or from a terminal:

code --install-extension maxontorres.cold-boot

Then, from the Command Palette:

Run Preferences: Color Theme and pick Cold Boot.
Run Preferences: File Icon Theme and pick Cold Boot Icons.

Build from source

You need Node.js and VS Code 1.85 or newer.

git clone https://github.com/maxontorres/vscode-cold-boot-theme.git
cd vscode-cold-boot-theme
npm run package
code --install-extension cold-boot-1.1.0.vsix

Color theme

A near-black workspace with cyan operational accents. The UI is dense and technical, with restrained contrast. The references are Uplink, ENCOM-style interfaces, Windows 2000-era software and cold industrial cyber-ops screens.

	Hex	Used for
	`#07090D`	Editor background
	`#E6EDF3`	Editor foreground
	`#4CC9F0`	Functions, tags, focus accents
	`#FF4FD8`	Keywords, cursor
	`#FFD166`	Constants, operators, attributes
	`#FFB454`	Strings
	`#A78BFA`	Types, classes
	`#2DD4BF`	Parameters, inline code
	`#718FA3`	Comments

Icons

The icon set is drawn like the glyphs of an early-2000s network workstation: sharp outlines, compact shapes and a restrained palette, all on a transparent background. Every icon is designed at 16px, the size VS Code actually renders. Shape carries the identity as much as color does, so icons stay distinguishable when two of them share a hue.

File icons follow the file type. The extension picks the language or data format. A file name only overrides it in two cases:

the file is a tool manifest or config: package.json, composer.json, Cargo.toml, Dockerfile, nginx.conf
the file is a framework's own entry point: manage.py, artisan, angular.json

So UserController.php gets the PHP icon and auth.service.ts gets the TypeScript icon, whatever framework the project uses.

Folder icons follow the role of the directory. src, config, migrations, tests and the rest share one folder outline with a small glyph inside, and each has an open variant.

Development

Open this folder in VS Code and press F5 to launch an Extension Development Host with both themes loaded.

Command	What it does
`npm run build:icons`	Regenerates the SVG assets, the icon theme JSON and the review sheet
`npm run validate`	Checks both themes: color keys, SVG constraints, icon mappings
`npm run package`	Builds the VSIX
`npm run release`	Validates, then publishes to the Marketplace

Path	Contents
`themes/`	The color theme JSON
`icons/`	Generated SVGs and the icon theme JSON
`scripts/`	Icon generator and validator
`concepts/`	Review sheets, excluded from the VSIX

Icons and their mappings are defined in scripts/build-icons.mjs. Edit that file, not the generated SVGs or icons/cold-boot-icon-theme.json. To check your changes, open concepts/uplink-icons-review.svg at 100% and compare the enlarged geometry with the native 16px row.

License

MIT