Theme Customization

Theme Customization

VimCode ships with 4 built-in color themes and supports importing VSCode color themes.

Built-in themes

Name	Description
onedark	One Dark (default) — dark background with muted colors
gruvbox-dark	Gruvbox Dark — warm retro colors
tokyo-night	Tokyo Night — blue-tinted dark theme
solarized-dark	Solarized Dark — Ethan Schoonover's precision colors

Switching themes

:colorscheme gruvbox-dark      " Switch to Gruvbox
:colorscheme                   " List all available themes

Or change in settings.json:

{
    "colorscheme": "tokyo-night"
}

The theme can also be changed from the Settings sidebar (gear icon in the activity bar) — the colorscheme picker shows all available themes including custom ones.

Importing VSCode themes

VimCode can load VSCode color theme .json files directly:

1. Find a theme — download a VSCode .json theme file (e.g., from a VS Code extension's themes/ directory)

2. Place it in the themes directory:

   mkdir -p ~/.config/vimcode/themes
   cp my-theme.json ~/.config/vimcode/themes/

3. Activate it:

   :colorscheme my-theme

The theme name is derived from the filename (without .json).

What gets imported

VimCode reads the following from VSCode theme JSON files:

• Editor colors: background, foreground, selection, cursor, line highlight
• Syntax colors: from tokenColors — keywords, strings, comments, functions, types, etc.
• UI colors: sidebar, activity bar, status bar, tab bar
• Semantic token colors: if the theme defines them

Limitations

• Not all VSCode theme properties are supported — VimCode maps the most common ones
• Some VSCode themes rely on editor-specific token scopes that may not map perfectly to VimCode's tree-sitter-based highlighting
• Themes designed for specific VS Code extensions may have unsupported properties

Theme in the settings sidebar

The Settings sidebar (gear icon) includes a Colorscheme picker that:

• Lists all built-in themes
• Lists all custom .json themes from ~/.config/vimcode/themes/
• Applies the theme immediately on selection
• Persists the choice to settings.json

Semantic token colors

VimCode's theme system includes 8 semantic token colors that overlay tree-sitter highlighting when LSP semantic tokens are available:

Token type	Description
parameter	Function parameters
property	Object/struct properties
namespace	Namespaces/modules
enum_member	Enum variants
interface	Interfaces/traits
type_parameter	Generic type parameters
decorator	Decorators/attributes
macro	Macros

These colors are defined in each built-in theme and can be customized in imported themes via VSCode's semanticTokenColors section.