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Pure Black High Contrast

v0.0.1 · by Dhanush S Gowda · added 3 November 2026

Pure black OLED-friendly high contrast theme for Zed with bright syntax colors and minimal dark UI

Themes
Install in Forge SuperView the source

How to install

With Forge Super installed, the button above opens the app on this extension, where you press Install. Nothing is installed until you do.

You can also open the Extensions panel in the app and search for Pure Black High Contrast. The extension's id is pure-black-high-contrast-theme.

Don't have Forge Super yet? Download it here.

README

From the extension's repository, written by its authors and not by Mentenaz. See the source.

Pure Black High Contrast

A pure black, high-contrast theme for Zed designed for developers who want a true #000000 editor background, bright syntax highlighting, and a clean dark interface.

Pure Black High Contrast

Features

  • True black #000000 editor background
  • High-contrast white text
  • OLED-friendly dark interface
  • Bright, readable syntax highlighting
  • Subtle UI borders and surfaces
  • Clear active line and selection states
  • Color-coded Git changes and diagnostics
  • Matching terminal color palette
  • Minimal visual distractions

Color Palette

The theme uses a small set of vibrant colors against a pure black background:

ElementColor
Background#000000
Foreground#FFFFFF
Blue#60A5FA
Cyan#67E8F9
Green#8FE388
Yellow#FFD166
Red#FF6B6B
Purple#D78BFF

Installation

From Zed Extensions

Open Zed and go to:

Extensions → Search for "Pure Black High Contrast" → Install

Then select the theme from:

Settings → Theme → Pure Black High Contrast

Manual Installation

Clone this repository:

git clone https://github.com/Dhanush-S-Gowda/zed-theme-Pure-Black-High-Contrast.git

Then install it as a development extension in Zed.

Open the command palette and run:

zed: extensions

Choose Install Dev Extension and select the cloned repository.

Why This Theme?

Many dark themes use dark gray backgrounds such as #111111, #181818, or #1E1E1E.

Pure Black High Contrast uses an actual:

#000000

background for the editor and terminal, while keeping surrounding UI elements subtly separated using near-black shades.

The result is a theme designed to feel:

  • dark without looking washed out
  • high contrast without being harsh
  • colorful without being distracting
  • especially suited to OLED displays

Syntax Highlighting

The syntax palette is designed around clear visual separation:

  • Keywords — Purple
  • Functions — Blue
  • Types — Cyan
  • Strings — Green
  • Numbers / Constants — Yellow
  • Properties / Parameters — Soft Red
  • Comments — Gray
  • Operators — Cyan

Compatibility

Built for the Zed editor using the Zed theme schema:

https://zed.dev/schema/themes/v0.2.0.json

Contributing

Suggestions, improvements, and pull requests are welcome.

If you notice an element that lacks contrast or a syntax color that could be improved, feel free to open an issue.

Author

Created by Dhanush S Gowda

GitHub: @Dhanush-S-Gowda

License

See the repository license for details.