jozi city nights

muted storm backdrop, neon synthwave syntax. tokyo night storm + kabukicho, brewed in johannesburg.

A colorscheme born from Johannesburg after dark — the quiet blue-grey of a storm rolling over the Highveld, lit up by the electric energy of the city that never sleeps. Three variants — jozi-nights (dark), jozi-morning (light), and jozi-midnight (deepest dark) — with matching configs for every tool in your stack.

kmf.github.io/jozi-city-nights — live palette preview with nights/morning/midnight toggle.

Palette

jozi-nights (dark)

Neutrals

	Token	Hex
	bg	#1b1e2e
	bg_soft	#1f2335
	bg_hi	#24283b
	border	#5d6898
	fg	#a9b1d6
	fg_alt	#c0caf5
	fg_muted	#868eb7

Accents

	Token	Hex
	pink	#f935b1
	purple	#c064f4
	blue	#7aa2f7
	sky	#7dcfff
	cyan	#58c7e0
	teal	#73daca
	mint	#b4f9f8
	green	#54e484
	yellow	#e0b401
	orange	#ff9e64
	ice	#89ddff

ANSI

	Token	Hex
	black	#414868
	red	#f935b1
	green	#54e484
	yellow	#e0b401
	blue	#7aa2f7
	magenta	#c064f4
	cyan	#58c7e0
	white	#a9b1d6
	bright_black	#545c7e
	bright_red	#f935b1
	bright_green	#54e484
	bright_yellow	#e0b401
	bright_blue	#7aa2f7
	bright_magenta	#c064f4
	bright_cyan	#58c7e0
	bright_white	#c0caf5

Neutral ramp

	Index	Hex
	0	#1b1e2e
	1	#1f2335
	2	#24283b
	3	#292e42
	4	#5d6898
	5	#545c7e
	6	#868eb7
	7	#a9b1d6
	8	#c0caf5

UI

	Token	Hex
	cursor	#f935b1
	cursor_text	#1b1e2e
	selection_bg	#292e42
	selection_fg	#c0caf5

jozi-morning (light)

Neutrals

	Token	Hex
	bg	#d5d6db
	bg_soft	#c8c9d1
	bg_hi	#bfc1cc
	border	#72778b
	fg	#343b58
	fg_alt	#1f2335
	fg_muted	#3f4d7d

Accents

	Token	Hex
	pink	#a0135b
	purple	#7928a8
	blue	#3b30e2
	sky	#1d4ed8
	cyan	#145a70
	teal	#115e59
	mint	#0c657e
	green	#156031
	yellow	#6a4f00
	orange	#8f3a06
	ice	#3b30e2

ANSI

	Token	Hex
	black	#343b58
	red	#a0135b
	green	#156031
	yellow	#6a4f00
	blue	#3b30e2
	magenta	#7928a8
	cyan	#145a70
	white	#c8c9d1
	bright_black	#3f4d7d
	bright_red	#a0135b
	bright_green	#156031
	bright_yellow	#6a4f00
	bright_blue	#3b30e2
	bright_magenta	#7928a8
	bright_cyan	#145a70
	bright_white	#343b58

Neutral ramp

	Index	Hex
	0	#1f2335
	1	#343b58
	2	#3f4d7d
	3	#9699a3
	4	#72778b
	5	#bfc1cc
	6	#c8c9d1
	7	#d5d6db
	8	#e1e2e7

UI

	Token	Hex
	cursor	#a0135b
	cursor_text	#d5d6db
	selection_bg	#bfc1cc
	selection_fg	#1f2335

jozi-midnight (deepest dark)

Neutrals

	Token	Hex
	bg	#101014
	bg_soft	#16161e
	bg_hi	#1a1b26
	border	#5b5e84
	fg	#a9b1d6
	fg_alt	#c0caf5
	fg_muted	#868eb7

Accents — same as jozi-nights.

ANSI

	Token	Hex
	black	#363b54
	red	#f92aad
	green	#54e484
	yellow	#e0b401
	blue	#7aa2f7
	magenta	#bb58f3
	cyan	#58c7e0
	white	#a9b1d6
	bright_black	#515670
	bright_red	#f92aad
	bright_green	#54e484
	bright_yellow	#e0b401
	bright_blue	#7aa2f7
	bright_magenta	#bb58f3
	bright_cyan	#58c7e0
	bright_white	#c0caf5

Neutral ramp

	Index	Hex
	0	#101014
	1	#14141b
	2	#16161e
	3	#1a1b26
	4	#5b5e84
	5	#363b54
	6	#515670
	7	#a9b1d6
	8	#c0caf5

UI

	Token	Hex
	cursor	#f92aad
	cursor_text	#101014
	selection_bg	#1e202e
	selection_fg	#c0caf5

What's included

Category	Tools
Terminals	Ghostty · Alacritty · Kitty · WezTerm · iTerm2 · foot · Windows Terminal
Editors	VS Code · Zed · Fresh
Apps	Claude Code · Obsidian
Desktop	COSMIC · DMS
Dev tools	btop · fzf · k9s · lazygit · tmux

Install

Per-tool steps are in INSTALL.md. Clone the repo and cherry-pick the configs you need:

git clone https://github.com/kmf/jozi-city-nights ~/.local/share/jozi-city-nights

Quickstart by tool

• Ghostty → cp terminals/ghostty/jozi-nights ~/.config/ghostty/themes/jozi-nights
• Alacritty → cp terminals/alacritty/jozi-nights.toml ~/.config/alacritty/themes/
• Kitty → cp terminals/kitty/jozi-nights.conf ~/.config/kitty/themes/
• WezTerm → cp terminals/wezterm/jozi-nights.lua ~/.config/wezterm/colors/
• VS Code → cp -r editors/vscode ~/.vscode/extensions/jozi-city-nights
• tmux → source-file ~/.local/share/jozi-city-nights/tools/tmux/jozi-nights.tmux
• fzf → source ~/.local/share/jozi-city-nights/tools/fzf/jozi-nights.sh
• btop → cp tools/btop/jozi-nights.theme ~/.config/btop/themes/
• k9s → cp tools/k9s/jozi-nights.yaml ~/.config/k9s/skins/
• Zed → cp editors/zed/jozi-city-nights.json ~/.config/zed/themes/
• Fresh → cp editors/fresh/jozi-nights.json ~/.config/fresh/themes/
• Obsidian → cp -r apps/obsidian <vault>/.obsidian/themes/jozi-city-nights
• COSMIC → cp desktop/cosmic/jozi-nights.ron ~/.config/cosmic/com.system76.CosmicTheme.Dark/v1/Theme
• cosmic-term → Import desktop/cosmic/cosmic-term-jozi-nights.ron via View > Color schemes

Replace jozi-nights with jozi-morning for the light variant, or jozi-midnight for the deepest dark.

For Obsidian midnight: copy apps/obsidian/snippets/jozi-midnight.css to <vault>/.obsidian/snippets/ and enable it under Settings > Appearance > CSS snippets.

Design

Jozi City Nights sits at the intersection of Tokyo Night Storm's restraint and synthwave's electricity:

• Muted storm backgrounds — deep navy blue-greys from Tokyo Night Storm (#1b1e2e, #1f2335, #24283b) that stay out of your way
• Neon synthwave accents — hot pink #f935b1, electric purple #c064f4, neon green #54e484, inspired by Kabukicho
• Three modes — nights is the city after dark, morning is the same energy after the storm passes, midnight goes deeper with Tokyo Night's darkest backgrounds (#101014, #16161e, #1a1b26)

The canonical palette is defined in palette.json.

Accessibility (WCAG AA)

All readable text and syntax accents meet WCAG 2.1 AA contrast against their variant background:

Pair	Target	Status
fg / fg_alt / fg_muted on bg / bg_soft / bg_hi	≥ 4.5:1	pass
Accents & ANSI colors on bg	≥ 4.5:1	pass
border on bg (non-text UI)	≥ 3:1	pass
cursor_text on cursor	≥ 4.5:1	pass

Near-background ANSI slots (black / bright_black on dark, white on morning) are intentionally low-contrast palette anchors, not body text.

Lineage

tokyo night storm + kabukicho → jozi city nights

Environment colors derived from Tokyo Night Storm (MIT). Syntax palette inspired by Kabukicho (MIT). Naming, semantic mapping, and blend are original.

License

MIT.

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built by kmf in pretoria · 2026