# Anatomy of a Dark Theme: Aurora Borealis > Anatomy of Aurora Borealis, a dark IDE theme: a deep blue night backdrop, a soft grey foreground, and syntax in the real colors of the Northern Lights. - URL: https://codigrate.com/blog/anatomy-of-the-aurora-borealis-theme - Published: 2026-06-22 - Updated: 2026-10-08 - Category: Inspiration - Theme: [Aurora Borealis](https://codigrate.com/theme?product=aurora-borealis) - Publisher: Codigrate (https://codigrate.com) Aurora Borealis takes its colors from a clear night sky far enough north to see the lights: a deep blue dark with ribbons of green drawn across it, fading up into blue and, on the rare best nights, into violet and rose. The job of the theme is to keep that night sky on screen while you work, calm enough to read for hours. Here is how Aurora is built, color by color, and why each one sits where it does. Its light twin, [Everest](https://codigrate.com/blog/anatomy-of-the-everest-theme), gets the same teardown. ## The Northern Lights In A Palette The source description sets the brief in one breath. Dark blues and teals serve as the backdrop, while lighter accents echo the ethereal colors of the Northern Lights, all of it tuned to be easy on the eyes so you can focus. So the structure of the theme is the night, deep and quiet, and the color is the aurora, rationed out as light against it. You can read the whole palette as the two halves of that scene. The night is a family of deep blue greys, the editor [#142B37](https://codigrate.com/tools/color/142B37) and the panels just above it. The aurora is the small set of colors that glow on top: a glacial sky blue [#7AC6F5](https://codigrate.com/tools/color/7AC6F5) for the accent and a Northern Lights green [#049682](https://codigrate.com/tools/color/049682) for the active highlight, the two colors a real aurora shows most often. ## The Harmony: A Cool Analogous Glow Where Everest was built on a single complementary pair, cold against warm, Aurora is built the opposite way, on colors that sit close together. Drop its two signature accents on the color wheel and the sky blue lands near 203 degrees and the aurora green near 172, only about thirty degrees apart. Colors that close are [analogous](https://codigrate.com/blog/introduction-to-color-harmony), the most cohesive relationship there is, and that is exactly why a real aurora reads as one glowing thing rather than separate colors fighting. The blues, teals and greens all belong to one cool family. The syntax stretches that family a little further, up the wheel into the violets and magentas that a strong aurora throws off at high altitude. So the full set sweeps from green through teal and blue into violet, a single arc across the cool half of the wheel. Nothing in it is warm, which is what keeps the theme feeling like cold night air. ## Backgrounds, Built In Layers A dark theme lives or dies on its neutrals just as a light one does, and Aurora never draws a hard line between panels. It stacks three near neutrals and lets a small step of lightness do the dividing: - Surface [#1A3746](https://codigrate.com/tools/color/1A3746), the outermost frame the window sits in. - Window [#123243](https://codigrate.com/tools/color/123243), the tool windows, tabs and panels. - Editor [#142B37](https://codigrate.com/tools/color/142B37), the page your code is written on, a deep blue grey rather than a flat black, so the night has colour in it. None of these is pure black on purpose. Black against bright text makes the harshest contrast there is, and it shows every halo and smudge a screen can throw. A deep blue grey keeps the contrast in a gentler band and reads as a night sky, which is the whole point. ## One Foreground, Several Voices The reading happens on the foreground, and Aurora leans on one main color for it: a soft grey [#B0B9BE](https://codigrate.com/tools/color/B0B9BE), not pure white. Against the deep blue editor that lands the contrast comfortably, bright enough to read all night, soft enough that it never glares the way white on black can. From that one anchor the theme builds its quiet hierarchy. Secondary text drops to a muted slate blue [#85A2B3](https://codigrate.com/tools/color/85A2B3), and comments go further still into a soft lavender [#A996B9](https://codigrate.com/tools/color/A996B9) set in italic, so your notes sit behind your code without vanishing. That is the same contrast ladder from [the readability post](https://codigrate.com/blog/introduction-to-readability): importance read as lightness, not as another loud colour. ## Syntax: The Aurora's Own Colors Open a file and the sky lights up. The structure of the language is painted in the aurora's real bands: - Keywords in a magenta [#BB719B](https://codigrate.com/tools/color/BB719B), the rare high band of the aurora, so the shape of the language is the first thing you see. - Strings and numbers in a clear blue [#549EFF](https://codigrate.com/tools/color/549EFF), the literal values reading as one calm group. - Functions and globals in a Northern Lights green [#73D379](https://codigrate.com/tools/color/73D379), local variables in a teal [#05C0A6](https://codigrate.com/tools/color/05C0A6), and methods in the sky blue accent [#7ACEF5](https://codigrate.com/tools/color/7ACEF5). - Parameters in a soft violet [#BAA5FF](https://codigrate.com/tools/color/BAA5FF) and comments in that same quiet lavender from the foreground ladder. Line them up and they are the aurora itself: green most of all, then blue and teal, with violet and magenta saved for the parts that change. Because the whole set stays on the cool, glowing side of the wheel, the code reads as one continuous light rather than a scatter of unrelated colours. ## The Final Product That is the theme in pieces. Put back together it looks like this, first in a JetBrains IDE, where Codigrate themes started, then in Sublime Text, Slack, Ghostty and Rhino. The night blue goes everywhere the theme goes, so the editor, the chat, the shell and even a 3D model end up under the same sky.
Aurora Borealis theme in a JetBrains IDE
JetBrains
Aurora Borealis theme in Sublime Text
Sublime Text
Aurora Borealis theme in Slack
Slack
Aurora Borealis theme in Ghostty
Ghostty
Aurora Borealis theme in Rhino
Rhino
## Reading It Back Put the pieces together and the theme tells one story. A deep blue night gives depth without ever going black. A soft grey foreground, stepped down through slate and lavender, keeps the reading calm. A cool analogous palette, green through blue into violet, carries the syntax in the aurora's own colors. Every color is doing a job, and the jobs all point back to the same northern sky. Want to try it in the editor you already work in? Aurora Borealis installs on JetBrains, VS Code, Cursor, Chrome, Slack and Ghostty, all from its [theme page](https://codigrate.com/theme?product=aurora-borealis). ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is the Aurora Borealis theme? Aurora Borealis is Codigrate's flagship dark theme, built around the deep blues of the Arctic night sky and the green, blue and violet light of the Northern Lights. A near black blue editor sits under a soft grey foreground, with the aurora's own colors carrying the syntax, so it stays calm and easy to read through a long session. ### Why is the background a deep blue instead of pure black? Pure black against bright text makes the highest possible contrast, which can buzz and tire the eyes, and it shows smudges and halos on many screens. Aurora uses a deep blue grey instead, around #142B37 for the editor, so the contrast with the soft grey text lands in a comfortable band and the whole screen reads like a night sky rather than a void. ### How are the syntax colors chosen in Aurora Borealis? They are the aurora's real colors. Keywords take a magenta, strings a clear blue, functions and globals a Northern Lights green, variables a teal, and comments a quiet lavender. Green, blue and violet are exactly the bands a real aurora glows in, so the code lights up in the same palette as the sky the theme is named for. ### Is a dark theme better for your eyes? Neither dark nor light is automatically easier; what matters is landing the contrast in a comfortable range and avoiding glare. A dark theme like Aurora helps most in a dim room, where a bright white page can feel harsh, by keeping the background low and the foreground soft rather than pure white on pure black.