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Palette

Foundation — slate

The editor, statusline, and popups all live in the slate scale.

	Hex	Tailwind	Where
	#0f172a	slate-900	ink on accent surfaces (status mode block)
	#1e293b	slate-800	statusline, popups, menus, rulers
	slate-chrome	bufferline background
	slate-editor	editor surface, gutter
	#334155	slate-700	selection, menu selected row
	slate-guide	indent guide
	#475569	slate-600	virtual text

Text — slate (inverse)

	Hex	Tailwind	Where
	#64748b	slate-500	comments, line numbers, inactive text
	#94a3b8	slate-400	operators, punctuation, inactive statusline
	#cbd5e1	slate-300	parameters, struct fields, properties
	#e2e8f0	slate-200	default foreground

Signature — teal

The "wave" in Slatewave. Primary accent across the editor and companion prompt.

	Hex	Tailwind	Where
	#5eead4	teal-300	primary accent — cursor, active line number, strings, statusline fg, normal mode badge
	#99f6e4	teal-200	types, constructors, inline code, insert mode badge

Accents

	Hex	Role
	#38bdf8	keywords, tags, info diagnostics, select mode badge, markdown links
	#7dd3fc	functions, methods, JSON/YAML keys
	#b388ff	storage (const/let/fn), this/self, attributes, directives
	#fb7185	numbers, constants, booleans, errors, diff minus
	#fbbf24	decorators, escape chars, macros, warnings, diff delta

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Syntax mapping

Mirrors the rest of the Slatewave family — same code lights up the same way across every editor.

Token		Color	Style
Comments		#64748b	italic
Keywords (if, return, import)		#38bdf8	—
Storage (const, let, fn, class)		#b388ff	italic
Types, constructors		#99f6e4	—
Functions, methods		#7dd3fc	—
Strings		#5eead4	—
Numbers, booleans, constants		#fb7185	—
Regex		#fb7185	—
Escape sequences, macros		#fbbf24	—
Decorators / attributes		#fbbf24	italic
this / self / builtins		#b388ff	italic
Parameters		#cbd5e1	italic
Fields / properties		#cbd5e1	—
Operators, punctuation		#94a3b8	—
HTML/JSX tags		#38bdf8	—
HTML/JSX attributes		#b388ff	italic
Markdown headings		#5eead4	bold
Markdown links		#38bdf8	underline
Diff plus / minus / delta	teal / rose / amber	—	—

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Mode colors

Helix surfaces the current editing mode on the statusline and the primary cursor. Slatewave maps each mode to a distinct accent so the active mode is readable at a glance:

Mode	Badge bg	Cursor bg
Normal	#5eead4 teal-300	teal-300
Insert	#99f6e4 teal-200	teal-200
Select	#38bdf8 sky-400	sky-400

Badge ink is always #0f172a slate-900 for maximum contrast against the accent.

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Installation

Requires Helix 24.03+ (for modern theme scopes like ui.bufferline, ui.virtual.inlay-hint, and curly diagnostic underlines).

From a local clone

git clone https://github.com/kevinlangleyjr/helix-slatewave.git
cp helix-slatewave/themes/slatewave.toml ~/.config/helix/themes/slatewave.toml

Then enable it in ~/.config/helix/config.toml:

theme = "slatewave"

Or pick it at runtime:

:set theme slatewave

Helix reloads themes on file save, so you can edit ~/.config/helix/themes/slatewave.toml and changes apply immediately.

Symlink for live editing

If you're tweaking the theme, symlink the repo file instead of copying:

ln -s "$PWD/helix-slatewave/themes/slatewave.toml" ~/.config/helix/themes/slatewave.toml

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Customize

Helix themes can inherit from each other via inherits. To override a single key without forking, create ~/.config/helix/themes/slatewave-mine.toml:

inherits = "slatewave"

"ui.background" = { fg = "#e2e8f0", bg = "#0a0f1e" }
"comment" = { fg = "#475569", modifiers = ["italic"] }

Then set theme = "slatewave-mine" in your config. All Slatewave palette names (slate-800, teal-300, purple, …) remain available in the inherited theme.

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Slatewave family

One palette. Every tool.

• Editors — VSCode · JetBrains · Xcode · Sublime Text · Zed · Neovim · NvChad
• Terminals — Alacritty · Ghostty · iTerm2 · kitty · Warp · WezTerm · Windows Terminal
• Prompts — Oh My Posh · Powerlevel10k · Starship
• Multiplexer — tmux
• CLI — bat · delta · LSD · btop
• Notes — Obsidian · Logseq · MarkEdit · Anytype
• Launchers — Alfred · Raycast
• Chat — Slack

See getslatewave.com for the full family.

Contributing

Issues and PRs welcome. For palette tweaks, please include a before/after screenshot of the same file so the visual tradeoff is obvious.

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License

WTFPL — Do What The Fuck You Want To Public License. See LICENSE.