Brackets Refined

A carefully refined dark theme for Zed with a neutral interface and a balanced, expressive syntax palette.

About

Brackets Refined preserves the clean, focused character associated with Brackets while adapting its visual language to Zed's modern interface and syntax highlighting system.

The theme uses a near-black neutral background, restrained UI contrast, muted secondary text, and a compact set of syntax colors chosen to keep code structure easy to scan without making the editor visually noisy.

Screenshots

Python

Brackets Refined — Python

TypeScript

Brackets Refined — TypeScript

HTML & CSS

Brackets Refined — HTML and CSS

Key Features

Near-black #181A1B editor background
Neutral, low-distraction workbench surfaces
Clear active, hover, selection, and focus states
Balanced syntax highlighting for functions, types, parameters, properties, strings, and constants
Coordinated diagnostics, Git, diff, and debugger colors
Complete terminal ANSI palette
Minimap and scrollbar states matched to the UI palette
Markdown and embedded-language highlighting
Tested with Python, Markdown, CSS, HTML, JavaScript, and TypeScript

Syntax Palette

Element	Color
Functions & Methods	`#74B9FF`
Types, Classes & Interfaces	`#E5C07B`
Keywords	`#C678DD`
Type Parameters	`#C678DD`
Namespaces & Modules	`#56B6C2`
Properties	`#56B6C2`
Parameters	`#D19A66`
Numbers & Constants	`#D19A66`
Variables	`#E8E8E8`
Strings	`#98C379`
Tags	`#E06C75`
Attributes & Decorators	`#3FA9F5`
Comments	`#6F7681` italic

Installation

Brackets Refined is available from Zed's Extensions catalog.

Open Zed.
Open Extensions.
Search for Brackets Refined.
Click Install.
Open the Theme Selector and select Brackets Refined.

Development Installation

Clone this repository, open Zed's Extensions view, choose Install Dev Extension, and select the repository root — the directory containing extension.toml.

Development

The Zed theme definition is located at:

themes/brackets-refined.json

After changing the theme, use Rebuild for the development extension in Zed's Extensions view to reload it.

Acknowledgements

Brackets Refined is an independent theme for Zed inspired by the visual style and syntax highlighting of the Brackets code editor.

Thanks to the Brackets and Zed communities and their contributors for the tools, documentation, and ecosystem that made this theme possible.

This project is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Adobe, the Brackets project, or Zed Industries.

License

Brackets Refined is released under the MIT License. See LICENSE.