Voltage

Voltage is a high-contrast, vibrant dark VS Code theme, which I might expand to other tools as well.

This project originated with my dissatisfaction with every color theme I seemed to find. I could never get the right combination of colors that I found to be helpful in identifying code and visually pleasing.

So, I made Voltage - No dimming, no washed out colors, but a rich set of vibrant colors against a clean dark background with customization throughout for different languages.

Structure

voltage/
├── vscode/
│   ├── package.json
│   └── themes/
│       └── voltage-color-theme.json
├── bash/
│   └── .bashrc
├── docs/
│   └── palette.md
├── img/
│   ├── voltage-logo.svg
│   ├── preview-c.svg
│   ├── preview-sv.svg
│   └── preview-python.svg
├── LICENSE
└── README.md

Each tool gets its own top-level folder. The palette itself is documented once, in docs/palette.md, rather than duplicated per app.

Installation

VS Code:

Grab the packaged extension from Releases and install it with:

code --install-extension voltage-theme-1.0.1.vsix

Or install manually from the file: Ctrl+Shift+P → "Extensions: Install from VSIX..." → select the .vsix.

Then Ctrl+Shift+P → "Preferences: Color Theme" → select Voltage.

To build the .vsix yourself:

cd vscode
npx @vscode/vsce package

Releasing (maintainers): bump version in vscode/package.json, add a matching ## X.Y.Z entry to vscode/CHANGELOG.md, and merge to main. A GitHub Actions workflow then packages the extension and publishes a GitHub Release with the .vsix attached automatically — no manual tagging needed.

Recommended settings:

I recommend extending the theme with rainbow bracket-pair guides. However, these need to be turned on by hand in your own settings.json (colorization itself, editor.bracketPairColorization.enabled, is already true by default in modern VS Code):

{
  "editor.guides.bracketPairs": true
}

Voltage doesn't bundle its own file icons, but if you have the Material Icon Theme extension installed, these are the folder/file tint colors used alongside Voltage:

{
  "workbench.iconTheme": "material-icon-theme",
  "material-icon-theme.folders.color": "#F56600",
  "material-icon-theme.files.color": "#522DB0"
}

Bash: Grab what you'd like from bash/.bashrc and drop it into ~/.bashrc — More for my personal uses

Palette

See docs/palette.md for the full color table.

Preview

C — excerpt from curl:

SystemVerilog:

Python — excerpt from omlx:

The listed previews are mockups with code from different open source projects

Language-specific notes

• C/C++: struct/object member access (e.g. x in threadIdx.x) is colored separately from the base identifier.
• SystemVerilog: port declarations (input, output, logic) follow the type/parameter color scheme; struct field access matches the C struct-access color; plain signals default to white.
• Tcl: commands match function color, variables are white, flags/options are orange, control keywords are pink-red.
• Python: and / or / not in conditionals get their own gold color, matching enums/macros.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.

Notes

This is a living theme — colors get adjusted as new languages or edge cases come up. Check the commit history for the latest tweaks.