Velvet Chrome is a minimal dark theme that pairs a unified chrome frame with crisp cyan-violet accents and warm amber highlights. It's tuned for long sessions and clean syntax contrast across TypeScript, TSX, Python, SQL, Java, JSON, and Markdown.
Highlights
Unified, low-noise UI chrome with clear focus states.
Split cyan-violet accents for structure and navigation.
Warm gold for strings and important highlights.
Muted green for comments and Git cues.
Accessibility
Velvet Chrome is designed with measurable contrast targets in mind.
Core text and UI pairs are checked with scripts/contrast_report.py.
Target for text readability is WCAG AA contrast ($\ge 4.5:1$).
Diff view uses a teal-vs-plum split for added/removed regions to reduce reliance on red/green-only distinction.
Current measured diff metrics:
editor.foreground on inserted diff background: 8.40:1
editor.foreground on removed diff background: 13.23:1
inserted vs removed text backgrounds: 1.58:1
inserted vs removed line backgrounds: 1.68:1
These values come from the built-in report script and can be re-checked after any palette changes.
Palette reference
Token
Hex
Usage
Background
#191919
Editor background
Foreground
#ECECEC
Editor text
Accent Violet
#CFA0FF
Active borders, cursor
Accent Cyan
#74C6FF
Types, info, focus
Accent Gold
#E6C36A
Strings, warnings
Accent Orange
#DDA167
Declarations
Accent Green
#6A9E86
Comments, git added
Accent Red
#D97A7A
Errors, git removed
Accent Purple
#D6A8FF
Keywords
Installation
Marketplace
Open the Extensions view in VS Code.
Search for Velvet Chrome.
Click Install.
VSIX
Download the .vsix package from the releases page.
In VS Code, run Extensions: Install from VSIX...
Select the downloaded file.
Activate the theme
Open the Command Palette (Cmd+Shift+P on macOS, Ctrl+Shift+P on Windows/Linux).
Run Preferences: Color Theme.
Select Velvet Chrome.
Development
Open this repository in VS Code.
Press F5 to launch the Extension Development Host.
In the new window, activate Velvet Chrome via Preferences: Color Theme.
Run scripts/contrast_report.py to verify contrast after edits.
Contributing
Suggestions and improvements are welcome. Please open an issue or submit a pull request.
