I Made Some Custom Material Darker Themes — You May Like Them Too
February 6, 2026
If you’ve ever used the Material Darker theme in your editor, you already know the vibe: deep dark backgrounds, soft neon accents, and a color palette that just feels right for long coding sessions. I’ve been using it for a while, and at some point I decided to make it my own.
So I built Trey’s Customized Material Darker Themes — a collection of theme files for Zed, VS Code, Cursor, and even ZSH (Oh-My-Zsh).
👉 Check it out on GitHub
What Started It
It started with Zed. I hand-built a Material Darker theme for the Zed editor because I wanted that familiar palette in a newer environment. Once I had something I was happy with, I thought — why stop there?
An Experiment in AI-Assisted Project Management
Here’s where it gets interesting: after creating the original Zed theme myself, I’ve been using AI to expand the theme across editors and shells. This repo has become an experiment in managing a project with AI — taking a hand-crafted starting point and scaling it out to multiple platforms.
It’s been a fun way to explore what AI collaboration looks like in practice for a real (albeit small) open-source project.
What’s Included
The repo is organized cleanly by platform:
- vscode/ — Theme files for VS Code and Cursor
- zed/ — Theme file for the Zed editor
- zsh/ — An Oh-My-Zsh shell theme
That means you get a consistent look whether you’re writing code in your editor or working in your terminal.
The Color Palette
Everything is built around the classic Material Darker palette:
| Role | Color |
|---|---|
| Background | #212121 / #1a1a1a |
| Foreground | #EEFFFF |
| Blue | #82AAFF |
| Green | #C3E88D |
| Red | #f07178 |
| Yellow | #FFCB6B |
| Cyan | #89DDFF |
| Gray | #848484 |
If you’re a fan of deep blacks, muted grays, and those signature pastel accents — this is for you.
How to Install
Installation is straightforward for all platforms. Copy the relevant theme file to the right directory, select it in your settings, and you’re good to go. Full instructions for each platform are in the README.
What’s Next
This is still evolving. I’m continuing to refine the themes and explore how far the AI-assisted workflow can take the project. If you try it out, I’d love to hear what you think — open an issue, drop a star, or reach out.
Update 2/21/2026 — A Lot More Support
Since this post went live, the theme has expanded well beyond the original four platforms. New additions include:
- Sublime Text
- JetBrains IDEs (IntelliJ, PyCharm, WebStorm, and the rest)
- Xcode
- OpenCode
- Alacritty
- Ghostty
- Powerlevel10k (a full .p10k.zsh config, not just colors)
The conversions have been done using GitHub Copilot, and they’ve been surprisingly accurate. Same palette, same vibe — just more places to use it. Whenever a new tool enters my workflow, I add a theme for it. This project will continue.
👉 Check it out on GitHub