This is effectively a fork of the material theme with. I have updated colour palette to give some parts higher contrast. I have also tried to focus more on semantic symbol highlighting rather than grammar based highlighting.
I mostly write C++ and Python so there is strong tailoring to that appearance. I also have the Clangd LSP set up rather than the default Microsoft one for my C++ development. Your milage may vary outside of this domain.
Development
The theme is broken down into two stages of definitions in the src dir that
get merged together in dist. theme-base.json currently covers most
definitions for the workspace including ui coloring and semantic token
definitions. generic or specific language grammars are then slapped on top for
the rest.
You can build the theme with the convenience entrypoint npm run build
specified in the package.json. Adding new grammars requires appending to the
GRAMMAR_ORDER list in build.js so the correct priority resolution is chosen.
Running the build command will produce the output in the dist directory.
The provided launch target provides a means for testing the theme live. The
deployment will reflect changes as per the output in the dist directory.
Always make edits here and backport them to the source or make edits in the src
and run the build command to see changes rendered.
Acknowledgements
I tired to combine the color scheme from a few different spots before finding something a little tweaked. The style from these spots was particularly helpful