MAPPING.md

Where every value comes from

Every color in ghostty/ and themes/ is one of three kinds:

• Extracted. Read out of Xcode's running editor through the accessibility API. Exact: these are the components Xcode itself assigns to each token.
• Measured. Sampled from the screen. Exact for the surface it was sampled from, on the display and macOS build it was sampled on.
• Chosen. Picked by eye or by offset from a measured value, because Xcode has no equivalent surface or the value was not measured.

Anything marked chosen is fair game to improve with a measurement.

tools/build.py generates themes/xcode-system.json and both ghostty/ files from the values in this document. Edit the values there, not in the generated files. bat/Xcode System.tmTheme holds no colors at all: it maps TextMate scopes to palette slots with bat's #RRGGBBAA encoding, alpha 00 and the ANSI index in RR, following the same role-to-slot table as the Ghostty files.

Sources

Xcode's workspace themes

Xcode 27 stores its workspace theme choice in com.apple.dt.Xcode under DVTWorkspaceThemeSettings. On the machine this theme was built on it decodes to:

{"dark": {"preset": {"_0": "Standard"}}, "light": {"default": {}}}

Both appearances use the built-in Standard preset: dark records it explicitly, and light's default means the preset was never changed from the default, which Xcode's Appearance panel shows as Standard in light mode too. The preset is a procedural recipe, and Xcode 27 does not read the classic .xccolortheme files while they are in effect: switching the font and color themes to Material Lighter and Material Palenight changed nothing in either mode, and the colors Xcode assigns in light mode differ from the bundled Default (Light) plist in hue, not just lightness. The plist's number is #1c00cf, a deep violet; Xcode 27 draws #0078b8.

xcode/Default (Light).xccolortheme

Verbatim copy from Xcode 27.0 (build 27A266a), taken from DVTUserInterfaceKit.framework/Resources/FontAndColorThemes/ inside Xcode.app. It is kept on record because earlier versions of this theme were built from it. No value here comes from it any more.

xcode/Standard 2.xcworkspacecolortheme and xcode/Standard 3.xcworkspacecolortheme

Xcode has no file that holds a recipe's resolved colors. These two recipes were exported from Xcode 27's Appearance panel on 2026-09-15 while experimenting with it, and they record the Standard preset's palette:

Recipe field	Value	Meaning
primary.hue	359° at intensity 0.5	the pink of keywords
secondary.hue	242° at intensity 0	neutral, so the background has no tint
colorOverrides.string.hue	30°	the orange-red of strings
colorOverrides.number.hue and preprocessor.hue	81°	the yellow of numbers and preprocessor lines

The hues are OKLCH hue angles. The extracted colors land on them: keyword at 357°, string at 31°, number at 80°, plain text at 2°.

Standard 2 keeps the preset's gradient background. Standard 3 pins the background to a neutral gray at OKLab lightness 0.2646 with zero chroma, which converts to #252525 in sRGB, one level from the #262626 measured on screen. The measurement wins, since the goal is what is on screen.

Neither recipe is the source of any value here. They are included so the preset's structure is on record.

Extraction

Xcode's source editor answers AXAttributedStringForRange, and the attributed string it returns carries a foreground color for every run. tools/axcolors.swift finds the editor in a named Xcode window, asks for the whole document, and prints each distinct color with the tokens it was applied to. The colors come back labeled Generic RGB, but their raw components are the sRGB values: multiplied by 255 they match screen pixels to within one level, in both modes, for every role.

To reproduce, with the terminal granted Accessibility access:

open -a Xcode tools/Probe.swift
swiftc -O tools/axcolors.swift -o /tmp/axcolors && /tmp/axcolors Probe.swift

tools/Probe.swift is a valid Swift file that exercises every syntax role. Wait for the title bar's "Preparing Editor Functionality" to clear before extracting, or references and system symbols come back with syntactic rather than semantic colors. Extracted 2026-09-24 from Xcode 27.0 with both font and color themes set to their bundled defaults.

Screen measurements

Taken 2026-09-24 on macOS 27.0 (build 26A428) with Allow wallpaper tinting in windows turned off, on a built-in Liquid Retina XDR display. Each surface is captured with screencapture -l <window id> and read with ImageMagick as the dominant pixel color of a region.

The PNG that screencapture writes is tagged with the display's own profile, not sRGB. It is converted to sRGB with magick in.png -profile "/System/Library/ColorSync/Profiles/sRGB Profile.icc" before pixels are read. Neutral grays come out the same either way; saturated colors do not, by up to 20 levels per channel. With that conversion, screen pixels of text agree with the extracted values to within one level.

Editor roles

Extracted. Components are in tools/build.py; the hex here is those components times 255, rounded.

Role in Xcode	Light	Dark	Tokens it covers	Ghostty	Zed
Plain text	#322529	#f9f1f3	punctuation, operators, local variables and their uses, module names, argument labels of project calls	foreground, cursor-color, selection-foreground, palette 7	text, icon, editor.foreground, editor.active_line_number, terminal.foreground, terminal.ansi.white; syntax primary, variable, operator, punctuation.*, label, embedded, title; players[0]. emphasis and emphasis.strong set only the font style, so doc-comment markup keeps the comment color as in Xcode
Comment	#6a7084	#abb3cd	// and /// comments, MARK:, TODO:, FIXME:, doc markup text. The /// marker is drawn at 35% alpha in light and 45% in dark; doc markup punctuation at 50% and 60%.	palette 8	text.muted, icon.muted, terminal.dim_foreground, terminal.ansi.bright_black, hint; syntax comment, comment.doc, comment.documentation, hint; comment.mark in bold for MARK:, TODO:, and FIXME: lines, as Xcode draws them
Doc comment code	#3e3c48	#c9c8d9	inline code and parameter names inside /// comments		syntax text.literal, which Zed's Markdown gives to code spans, including inside Swift doc comments with the improved Swift extension
Link	#0049c1	#5b97e6	URLs in comments	palette 4	text.accent, icon.accent, link_text.hover, info, renamed, accents[0], players[5]; syntax link_text, link_uri, tag
Preprocessor	#906918	#eba800	#if, #endif, #warning(...)	palette 3 and 11	warning; syntax preproc
Number	#0078b8	#eba800	integer and float literals. Dark shares the preprocessor color.	dark only: palette 3 and 11	modified, players[3], accents[3]; syntax number; dark search.match_background at 40%
String	#ca2c1d	#ff8d7a	string, multi-line string, and character literals, including interpolation delimiters	palette 1 and 9	error, deleted, conflict, players[4], accents[4]; syntax string, string.*
Keyword	#c4246e	#ff82b3	keywords, init, true, nil, some, and attributes such as @available, @objc, @inlinable, @propertyWrapper. Xcode sets keywords in SF Mono Semibold, so the keyword scopes carry weight 600; attributes stay regular.	palette 5	players[1], accents[1]; syntax keyword, attribute, boolean, constructor, variable.builtin, variable.special
Declaration	#006279	#26a6c1	names being declared: functions, methods, parameters, global variables and constants, properties, enum cases, _	palette 2	syntax function.definition, variable.parameter
Reference	#00695c	#21ac9c	uses of project functions, methods, global variables, properties, enum cases	palette 10	success, created, players[2], accents[2]; syntax function, function.method, constant, property, variant
Type declaration	#007e9e	#00cafa	names of structs, classes, enums, protocols, typealiases being declared	palette 12
Type reference	#00856f	#00d9b2	uses of project types, including as property wrappers		players[7]; syntax type, enum
System type	#9d31cf	#d896fe	String, Int, Date, URL, NSObject, View, argument labels of system calls, type-based attributes such as @MainActor and @ViewBuilder	palette 6 and 14	players[6], accents[5]; syntax type.builtin
System function and macro	#8b0099	#d852e6	print, max, abs, .count, .uppercased(), Int.max, Double.pi, .default, #Preview, @Observable, @State	palette 13	syntax function.builtin, function.macro

Notes:

• Zed's type takes the reference color, not the declaration color. Zed applies type to every type identifier, and uses outnumber declarations. Same for function. Zed's function.definition and variable.parameter get the declaration color where a grammar emits them.
• Light has no ANSI slot for number. It is a saturated blue that would be wrong in the yellow slot, so the yellow slots both carry the preprocessor ochre.
• Palette 0 is chosen: #000000 light, #353535 dark. Palette 15 is #ffffff in both.
• Cursor is the plain text color, chosen. Xcode's insertion point was not measured; the machine this was built on runs Xcode's Vim mode, whose block cursor hides it.
• The earlier dark values, measured from screenshots before the extraction existed, differ from the extracted ones by at most three levels per channel: plain #faf1f3, comment #aab3cd, string #ff8d79, function #26a5bf, type #03c8f9, lavender #d795fc, link #5a97e4, and #d751e4 for what turned out to be the system function and macro color.

Editor surfaces

Measured unless marked chosen.

Surface	Light	Dark	Ghostty	Zed
Editor background	#ffffff	#262626	background, cursor-text	editor.background, editor.gutter.background, terminal.background, tab.active_background, toolbar.background
Text selection, the system selection color	#b3d7ff	#3f638b	selection-background	players[0].selection, panel.focused_border, pane.focused_border, border.focused, border.selected; document highlights and drop_target.background at reduced alpha
Current line	#eeeeee	#353535		editor.active_line.background, editor.highlighted_line.background
Line numbers	#b8b3b4	#6f6d6e		editor.line_number
Invisibles, chosen	#cccccc	#4a4a4a		editor.invisible; light also editor.active_wrap_guide, editor.indent_guide_active, panel.indent_guide_hover, panel.indent_guide_active
Guides, chosen	#e1e1e1	#353535		editor.wrap_guide, editor.indent_guide
Active guides in dark, chosen		#474747		editor.active_wrap_guide, editor.indent_guide_active
Placeholder text, chosen	#a0a0a0	#7a7f8c		text.placeholder, text.disabled, icon.placeholder, icon.disabled, predictive, ignored, hidden, unreachable
Search match, chosen	#fff28a	number at 40%		search.match_background
Scrollbar thumb, chosen	black at 20% and 33%	white at 20% and 33%		scrollbar.thumb.*

Light #eeeeee and #b3d7ff replace the plist's #e8f2ff and #a4cdff, which Xcode 27 does not draw. The light selection is AppKit's selectedTextBackgroundColor; the dark one matches AppKit's dark value exactly.

Window chrome

Measured on 2026-09-24 from a project window with the navigator, inspector, and debug area open.

Surface	Dark	Light
Xcode editor	#262626	#ffffff
Xcode navigator and inspector	#292929, measuring between #282828 and #292929	#ededed
Xcode navigator selected row, navigator not focused	#474747	#d7d7d7
Xcode title bar and toolbar	#2f2f2f	#ffffff
Xcode jump bar and debug area bar	#2e2e2e	#ffffff
Xcode status bar	#2d2d2d	#ffffff
Xcode bottom console area	#252525	#ffffff
Finder sidebar	#262626	#ededed
Finder toolbar and status bar	#272727 to #2a2a2a, a material over the file list	#ffffff
Finder file area, icon and column view	#1e1e1e	#ffffff
Finder list view rows, alternating	#1e1e1e and #292929	#ffffff and #f4f5f5

Finder's file area and rows are AppKit's controlBackgroundColor and alternatingContentBackgroundColors, which resolve to exactly these values. Xcode's dark navigator selected row is within one level of unemphasizedSelectedContentBackgroundColor, #464646.

There is no visible separator line between Xcode's navigator and editor in either mode; the panels meet edge to edge. The border values below are therefore chosen.

Zed chrome, both modes

Zed keys	Light	Dark	Kind	Note
background, surface.background, panel.background, tab_bar.background, tab.inactive_background, element.background, element.disabled, editor.subheader.background	#ededed	#292929	measured	Xcode's navigator.
title_bar.background, title_bar.inactive_background, status_bar.background	#ededed	#292929	measured	The panel gray, so the sidebar, title bar, and status bar form one surface around the editor, as Xcode's navigator and toolbar area does around its editor. Xcode's own toolbar measures #ffffff and #2f2f2f; using it gave Zed a distinct band across the top that read as clutter.
element.selected, ghost_element.selected	#d7d7d7	#474747	measured	Xcode's navigator selected row.
elevated_surface.background	#ffffff	#383838	chosen	Popovers. Light uses the editor white; dark is the old #2e2e2e moved up 10.
border, pane_group.border, panel.indent_guide	#d9d9d9	#3f3f3f	chosen	The sidebar edge, title bar line, and split dividers, kept so the window reads like Zed's own themes. Light: the old plist border #e1e1e1 moved down 8. Dark: #353535 moved up 10. Dark also uses this for element.hover and ghost_element.hover.
border.variant, border.disabled, scrollbar.track.border	transparent	transparent	chosen	The hairlines under the tab bar and the breadcrumb bar, dropped so the editor chrome reads as one block. Xcode has no lines there either.
element.hover, ghost_element.hover	#e0e0e0	#3f3f3f	chosen	Light: #e8e8e8 moved down 8.
element.active, ghost_element.active	#d0d0d0	#515151	chosen	Light: #d8d8d8 moved down 8. Dark: #474747 moved up 10, also used for panel.indent_guide_hover and panel.indent_guide_active.

Known gaps

• Zed's Swift extension has no node for macro expressions such as #Preview, so they render as plain text where Xcode uses the macro color. Bare URLs inside doc comments are not recognized by Markdown either.

• Xcode colors DocC symbol links in doc comments, the double-backtick form such as ``LandmarkRow``, in the link color. Zed's Markdown treats them as ordinary code spans, so they take the doc-code color. Telling them apart needs a pattern in Zed's own markdown-inline query, not the theme or the Swift extension.

• The chrome borders, hover, and active states are offsets from older values, not measurements of Xcode's separators and hover states. Xcode has no visible separator between its panels.

• The cursor colors are chosen. Vim mode's block cursor hid the insertion point.

• Xcode's Standard preset draws a subtle gradient background by recipe. The editor measured #262626 across several regions, so the theme is flat.