Alabastro Theme for VS Code

A dark variation of the minimal Alabaster syntax highlighting scheme with enhanced colors and comprehensive UI customization for Visual Studio Code.

About

Alabastro builds upon the philosophy of the original Alabaster theme—minimal, focused syntax highlighting that emphasizes what matters. While Alabaster uses a light background with limited colors, Alabastro adapts this approach for dark theme lovers and adds more semantic colors to enhance readability across a wider range of programming languages.

Screenshots

Full Editor View

Full Editor

Syntax Highlighting Examples

Python

React/JSX

React

TypeScript

Rust

HTML

CSS

Features

Dark, Eye-Friendly Design: Carefully curated colors for reduced eye strain during extended coding sessions
Minimal Yet Enhanced: Based on Alabaster's philosophy but with additional colors for better semantic differentiation
Comprehensive Language Support: Optimized syntax highlighting for 40+ programming languages including:
- Haskell, Python, Rust, Go, JavaScript/TypeScript
- Elm, Clojure, Java, C/C++, C#
- Ruby, PHP, CSS, HTML, JSON, YAML, Markdown
- And many more
Complete UI Customization: Full editor, terminal, sidebar, and status bar color definitions
Semantic Token Support: Modern semantic highlighting for VS Code's code understanding features
Terminal Colors: Properly configured ANSI colors for integrated terminal

Installation

Open VS Code
Go to Extensions (Ctrl+Shift+X / Cmd+Shift+X)
Search for "Alabastro"
Click Install
Click "Set Color Theme" or go to Preferences > Color Theme > Alabastro

Color Palette

Key colors used in this theme:

Background: #1e1e1e - Main editor background
Foreground: #cccccc - Primary text color
White: #ffffff - Keywords, operators, punctuation
Light Green: #b3db9d - Variables, tags, headings
Blue: #79bff2 - Functions, methods
Dark Blue: #5598ff - Types, classes, namespaces, imports
Yellow: #ffe300 - Strings, constants, attributes
Cyan: #6cd5c1 - Comments, links
Red: #f44747 - Errors

Customization

To customize the theme to your preferences:

Open Code > Preferences > Settings
Search for "workbench.colorCustomizations"
Edit colors directly or use the color picker

Example:

"workbench.colorCustomizations": {
  "[Alabastro]": {
    "editor.background": "#1a1a1a",
    "editor.foreground": "#d0d0d0"
  }
}

Inspiration

This theme is inspired by Nikita Prokopov's Alabaster theme, which advocates for minimal syntax highlighting that doesn't distract from the code structure. Alabastro adapts these principles for dark mode environments while adding subtle color variations for improved semantic clarity.

License

MIT - See LICENSE file for details

Contributing

Have suggestions or found an issue? Feel free to reach out or create an issue if a repository becomes available.

Changelog

See CHANGELOG.md for version history.

Alabastro

ramoncardena