Solarized

Sixteen-color palette by Ethan Schoonover designed for terminal and GUI applications. Eight monotones (base03..base3) plus eight accent hues (yellow, orange, red, magenta, violet, blue, cyan, green). Built on precise CIELAB lightness relationships so the dark and light variants share the same perceived contrast — colorscheme inversion is trivial. Dark mode uses base03/02/01 as canvas surfaces and base0..3 as text. Light mode is the symmetric inverse — base3/2/1 as canvas surfaces and base00..base03 as text. Accent hues are mode-stable.

16 swatches 14 light roles 14 dark roles solarizededitordual-modelow-contrastcielab

Swatches

base03
#002B36
Dark mode background.
base02
#073642
Dark mode highlights / elevated surface.
base01
#586E75
Optional emphasized content; dark mode comments.
base00
#657B83
Light mode body text.
base0
#839496
Dark mode body text.
base1
#93A1A1
Optional emphasized content; light mode comments.
base2
#EEE8D5
Light mode highlights / elevated surface.
base3
#FDF6E3
Light mode background.
yellow
#B58900
Accent. Strings, attributes.
orange
#CB4B16
Accent. Integers, booleans, constants.
red
#DC322F
Accent. Errors, deletions.
magenta
#D33682
Accent. Keywords, declarations.
violet
#6C71C4
Accent. Operators, special chars.
blue
#268BD2
Accent. Primary; functions, headings.
cyan
#2AA198
Accent. Regex, escape chars, support.
green
#859900
Accent. Successes, additions, classes.

Mode role mappings

Light mode (14 roles)

accent → magenta
accent-hover → violet
background → base3
error → red
primary → blue
primary-hover → cyan
success → green
surface → base2
surface-elevated → base3
text-primary → base00
text-secondary → base01
text-tertiary → base1
warning → orange
warning-hover → yellow

Dark mode (14 roles)

accent → magenta
accent-hover → violet
background → base03
error → red
primary → blue
primary-hover → cyan
success → green
surface → base02
surface-elevated → base02
text-primary → base0
text-secondary → base1
text-tertiary → base01
warning → orange
warning-hover → yellow

Provenance

Source
https://github.com/altercation/solarized/blob/master/README.md
License
MIT
Attribution
Solarized by Ethan Schoonover (github.com/altercation/solarized)
Imported
2026-05-17
Notes
Hex values extracted directly from the canonical SOLARIZED HEX table and the SCSS variable block in the upstream README. Both light and dark mode role mappings follow the @mixin rebase pattern documented in the same README (light = rebase(base3..base03); dark = rebase inverted).