About
Built around two ideas: a quiet, restrained interface, and a palette where every color carries the same weight.
What alpha is
alpha is a Visual Studio Code color theme shipped in two variants — alpha dark and alpha light. The interface chrome — editor, sidebar, status bar, tabs, panels, terminal, git decorations — is deliberately restrained so it stays out of the way. On top of that quiet surface, alpha places a syntax palette of seven hues tuned for equal perceived weight.
The palette
In the dark variant, every syntax color is locked at HSL(h, 100%, 68%). Only the hue rotates. The result is strictly isoluminant — no token visually outweighs another, so the eye reads structure instead of brightness.
In the light variant, the same seven hues are retuned per channel: saturation stays at 100%, but lightness is lowered until each color clears ≥ 4.5:1 contrast (WCAG-AA) on a white background. The variants look different, but they feel the same.
Why a quiet interface
The VS Code chrome doesn't need to be loud. alpha keeps it neutral and predictable so attention stays on the code. The design budget goes into the part that actually changes every second you work: the syntax.
About the developer
alpha is designed and maintained by Gökhan Gündüz, an independent developer based in Ankara, Turkey. The theme is free, open source under the MIT License, and developed in public on GitHub.