Acuity Dark Research

A dark Visual Studio Code color theme designed from explicit legibility and accessibility constraints rather than aesthetic preference alone.

What is different

• Core syntax colors have WCAG contrast ratios from 7.53:1 to 10.34:1 against the editor background.
• Ordinary foreground text is 11.61:1.
• Comments are deliberately subordinate but remain 5.77:1, above the WCAG 4.5:1 normal-text threshold.
• The five routine syntax accents were optimized for separation under simulated protanopia, deuteranopia, and tritanopia.
• Red/coral is reserved for errors, invalid tokens, and deletions rather than routine code.
• Control-flow keywords use bold and comments use italics, so important distinctions do not rely on hue alone.
• Semantic highlighting is enabled and includes mappings for C# namespaces, types, methods, properties, constants, parameters, and attributes.

The accompanying RESEARCH.md report explains the evidence, assumptions, calculations, theme comparison, and limitations. AUDIT.md contains the numerical checks.

Install the VSIX

From a terminal:

code --install-extension acuity-dark-research-0.1.0.vsix

Or in VS Code:

1. Open Extensions.
2. Select the ... menu.
3. Select Install from VSIX....
4. Choose acuity-dark-research-0.1.0.vsix.
5. Open Preferences: Color Theme with Ctrl/Cmd+K, then Ctrl/Cmd+T.
6. Select Acuity Dark Research.

Open samples/ThemePreview.cs to exercise the C# mappings.

Recommended test settings

{
  "editor.semanticHighlighting.enabled": "configuredByTheme",
  "editor.bracketPairColorization.enabled": true,
  "editor.guides.bracketPairs": "active"
}

Run the audit

The script uses only the Python standard library:

python scripts/audit_palette.py

Interpreting the claim

This is an evidence-informed candidate, not proof of universal superiority. No published study compares every VS Code theme in a controlled programming trial. The theme is intended to outperform common dark themes on measurable prerequisites—contrast, restrained salience, readable comments, semantic redundancy, and simulated color-vision robustness—then be tested in actual development work.