Candela
A warm, low-fatigue theme for Zed — dark + light, built on real color math instead of eyeballing.
- Perceptual coherence — accents derived in OKLCH at a fixed lightness (L=0.80) and chroma (C=0.115), 8 hues equally spaced around the wheel. No single color vibrates or dominates.
- Verified contrast — body text hits WCAG AAA (≥7:1); every accent clears AA+ (≥4.5:1). Measured, not guessed.
- Colorblind-aware — meaning never rides on red/green alone; red is reserved for errors (with background + border).
- Warm foundation — warm background reduces eye strain; cool accents on frequent roles (functions, types, variables), warm accents on values (numbers, strings). Calm structure, warm attention.
- Color = identifier, gray = operator — identifiers are colored, operators and punctuation are neutral gray, so your eye follows the content.
Screenshots
See the showcase page.
Install
From the Zed extension store
Open the command palette → zed: extensions → search Candela → install. Then theme selector: toggle (Ctrl+K Ctrl+T) and pick Candela Dark or Candela Light.
Manual (local)
Copy themes/candela.json into your Zed themes directory:
- Windows:
%APPDATA%\Zed\themes\ - macOS:
~/.config/zed/themes/ - Linux:
~/.config/zed/themes/
Then open the theme picker (Ctrl+K Ctrl+T).
Palette (dark)
| Role | Hex | Contrast vs bg |
|---|---|---|
| Background | #1c1915 |
— |
| Text | #e8e4df |
14:1 (AAA) |
| Variable / property | #8ac1ff blue |
≥8.9:1 (AAA) |
| Function | #d5bd62 gold |
≥8.9:1 (AAA) |
| Type / tag | #4dd4db cyan |
≥8.9:1 (AAA) |
| Keyword | #c9adfd purple |
≥8.9:1 (AAA) |
| Number / constant | #f4ac6f orange |
≥8.9:1 (AAA) |
| String | #86d396 green |
≥8.9:1 (AAA) |
| Operator / punctuation | #b0aca6 gray |
— |
License
MIT — see LICENSE.