Half-Moon

A pair of themes for Visual Studio Code, derived from Dracula, with layered backgrounds and a warm orange accent (#F76B15).

• Dark Moon — deep, layered black backgrounds (the editor is the darkest, the chrome steps up a notch) for an interface that fades away in favor of the code.
• Light Moon — the same structure inverted for light mode, with a syntax palette adapted to stay readable on a white background.

Preview

Dark Moon

Light Moon

Installation

From source (development)

1. Clone this repository.

2. Create a symbolic link to the VS Code extensions folder:

   ln -s "$(pwd)" ~/.vscode/extensions/melvin-design.half-moon-1.0.0
   

3. Reload VS Code (Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+P → Developer: Reload Window).

4. Select the theme: Cmd/Ctrl+K Cmd/Ctrl+T → Dark Moon or Light Moon.

Package a .vsix

npm install -g @vscode/vsce
vsce package

Then in VS Code: Extensions → ... → Install from VSIX...

Usage

Select a theme manually

• Command palette: Cmd/Ctrl+K Cmd/Ctrl+T (or Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+P → Preferences: Color Theme), then pick Dark Moon or Light Moon.

• Settings: add the theme name to your settings.json:

  {
    "workbench.colorTheme": "Dark Moon"
  }
  

Switch automatically with the OS (light/dark)

To let VS Code follow your system appearance — Dark Moon at night, Light Moon in the day — enable auto-detection and set the preferred theme for each mode in your settings.json:

{
  "window.autoDetectColorScheme": true,
  "workbench.preferredDarkColorTheme": "Dark Moon",
  "workbench.preferredLightColorTheme": "Light Moon"
}

When window.autoDetectColorScheme is on, workbench.colorTheme is ignored — VS Code uses the two preferred* themes above depending on whether your OS is in light or dark mode.

Palette

Both themes share the same structure: the same color codes are reused at the same interface levels (editor, chrome, widgets, hovers), and a single orange accent is used for indicators, active borders, focus states, and badges.

Backgrounds — Dark Moon

Backgrounds — Light Moon

Syntax

Both themes share a parallel syntax palette: each role has its dark hue and an equivalent light hue, for consistent contrast from one mode to the other.

The examples/ folder contains files in several languages to see these colors in context; see examples/legend.md.

Credits

These themes are derived from Dracula by Zeno Rocha and its contributors, under the MIT license. Huge thanks to them: Half-Moon wouldn't exist without their work. Half-Moon reuses Dracula's scope structure, but applies its own syntax palette as well as its own backgrounds and accent.

The syntax palette and accent are built on Radix Colors by WorkOS (Radix UI), under the MIT license — color scales designed for accessibility and contrast, available in both light and dark modes.

Half-Moon is also inspired by GitHub Dark 2026, whose approach to deep layered backgrounds influenced the interface structure of both themes.

License

MIT © 2026 Melvin.Design.

Half-Moon includes portions of Dracula (© 2016 Dracula Theme, MIT) and color values from Radix Colors (© WorkOS, MIT). GitHub Dark 2026 is cited as inspiration only — no code or assets are reused from it. See LICENSE for the full text of third-party licenses.