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Palette

Foundation — slate

The editor, sidebar, and panels all live in the slate scale. Five steps, darkest to lightest.

	Hex	Tailwind	Where
	#020617	slate-950	activity bar, tab strip
	#0f172a	slate-900	editor, sidebar, terminal
	#1e293b	slate-800	inputs, status bar, menus
	#334155	slate-700	list focus, borders
	#475569	slate-600	gutter, ignored files

Text — slate (inverse)

	Hex	Tailwind	Where
	#64748b	slate-500	comments
	#94a3b8	slate-400	operators, muted UI
	#cbd5e1	slate-300	parameters, properties
	#e2e8f0	slate-200	default foreground
	#f1f5f9	slate-100	bright ANSI white

Signature — teal

The "wave" in Slatewave. Used as the primary accent across the editor and the companion prompt.

	Hex	Tailwind	Where
	#0f766e	teal-700	debugging status bar, buttons
	#5eead4	teal-300	primary accent — cursor, active tab, strings, prompt
	#99f6e4	teal-200	types, classes, interfaces
	#ecfeff	cyan-50	text on teal/cyan backgrounds

Accents

Each accent maps to a specific role in both the prompt and the editor, so the terminal and editor speak the same visual language.

	Hex	Role in prompt	Role in editor
	#38bdf8	git clean branch	keywords, tags, info diagnostics, links
	#7dd3fc	—	functions, JSON/YAML keys, CSS props
	#B388FF	git ahead / behind	storage (const/let/function), this/self, decorators-adjacent
	#fb7185	git dirty (working/staging)	numbers, constants, modified files, errors
	#fbbf24	—	decorators, escape chars, warnings
	#b45309	battery discharging	warning status bar, deprecated
	#0e7490	battery charging	remote status bar
	#ff4500	git diverged	merge conflicts
	#ef5350	exit code != 0	deleted files, invalid syntax

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Syntax mapping

Token		Color	Style
Comments		#64748b	italic
Keywords (if, return, import)		#38bdf8	—
Storage (const, let, function, class)		#B388FF	italic
Types / classes / interfaces		#99f6e4	—
Functions (calls + definitions)		#7dd3fc	—
Strings		#5eead4	—
Numbers, booleans, null, undefined		#fb7185	—
Constants (UPPER_SNAKE)		#fb7185	—
Regex		#fb7185	—
Escape sequences		#fbbf24	—
Decorators / annotations		#fbbf24	italic
this / self / super		#B388FF	italic
Parameters		#cbd5e1	italic
Properties / object keys		#cbd5e1	—
Operators, punctuation		#94a3b8	—
HTML/JSX tags		#38bdf8	—
HTML/JSX attributes		#B388FF	italic
CSS selectors		#5eead4	—
CSS properties		#7dd3fc	—
CSS custom properties (--var)		#B388FF	—
CSS pseudo selectors		#fbbf24	—
Markdown headings		#5eead4	bold
Markdown links		#38bdf8	underline
Markdown inline code		#99f6e4	—
Diff inserted		#5eead4	—
Diff deleted		#fb7185	—

Semantic highlighting is enabled; declarations render bold, deprecated symbols render strikethrough.

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Terminal

The integrated terminal's ANSI palette is wired to the prompt's segment colors, so the companion oh-my-posh theme renders identically in VSCode and any outside terminal.

ANSI	Hex
black	#1e293b
red	#fb7185
green	#5eead4
yellow	#b45309
blue	#38bdf8
magenta	#B388FF
cyan	#0e7490
white	#e2e8f0

Bright variants follow the same mapping, shifted one step up the scale.

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Installation

Slatewave is published to both the VS Code Marketplace and Open VSX, so it works in any VS Code-compatible editor.

VS Code

code --install-extension kevinlangleyjr.slatewave

Cursor

cursor --install-extension kevinlangleyjr.slatewave

VSCodium

VSCodium uses Open VSX by default.

codium --install-extension kevinlangleyjr.slatewave

Antigravity

antigravity --install-extension kevinlangleyjr.slatewave

After installing, open the theme picker (⌘K ⌘T / Ctrl+K Ctrl+T) and choose Slatewave.

From a local clone

git clone https://github.com/kevinlangleyjr/vscode-slatewave.git \
  ~/.vscode/extensions/kevinlangleyjr.slatewave-0.0.9

Replace ~/.vscode/extensions with your editor's extensions directory (~/.cursor/extensions, ~/.vscode-oss/extensions, etc.) as needed.

From a .vsix

vsce package
code --install-extension slatewave-0.0.9.vsix

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Slatewave family

One palette. Every tool.

• Editors — JetBrains · Xcode · Sublime Text · Zed · Neovim · Helix
• Terminals — Alacritty · Ghostty · iTerm2 · WezTerm · Windows Terminal · Kitty
• 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.

Customize

To override a specific color without forking the theme, add to your settings.json:

{
  "workbench.colorTheme": "Slatewave",
  "workbench.colorCustomizations": {
    "[Slatewave]": {
      "editor.background": "#0a0f1e",
      "editorCursor.foreground": "#99f6e4"
    }
  },
  "editor.tokenColorCustomizations": {
    "[Slatewave]": {
      "comments": "#475569"
    }
  }
}

The [Slatewave] scope ensures your overrides only apply when this theme is active.

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Contributing

Issues and PRs welcome. If you're proposing a palette change, 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.