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Parametric Generator

The parametric generator creates custom CoolNight theme variants from any hue angle, hex color, or preset name. Generated themes are saved to ~/.nvp/themes/ and are immediately available for use.

What It Is

The generator analyzes the color relationships in the CoolNight Ocean reference palette using HSL color space. For each color in the palette, it records the hue offset from Ocean's base hue (210°), the saturation, and the lightness. When generating a new theme, it applies those same relationships at the new target hue.

The result is a theme that looks and feels like CoolNight but centered on your chosen color.

Creating Variants

nvp theme create --from <value> --name <name> [--use] [--dry-run]

Flags

Flag Required Description
--from <value> Yes Base color: hue angle (0-360), hex (#rrggbb), or preset name
--name <name> Yes Name for the new theme (saved to ~/.nvp/themes/<name>.yaml)
--use No Set the new theme as active immediately after creation
--dry-run No Preview the generated theme without saving

Input Types

Input Format Example
Hue angle Integer 0-360 "280"
Hex color #rrggbb "#8B00FF"
Preset name Named CoolNight preset "synthwave"

Examples

# Create from a hue angle
nvp theme create --from "280" --name my-purple

# Create from a hex color (the hue is extracted from the color)
nvp theme create --from "#8B00FF" --name my-violet

# Create from a preset name
nvp theme create --from "synthwave" --name my-synth

# Create and set as active immediately
nvp theme create --from "120" --name my-green --use

# Preview without saving
nvp theme create --from "45" --name preview-gold --dry-run

Hue Reference

The hue angle determines the primary color family of the generated theme.

Hue Range Color Family Example Presets
0° Red crimson
0° - 30° Red to orange ember (15°), sunset (25°)
30° - 90° Orange to yellow gold (45°)
90° - 165° Yellow to green forest (140°), matrix (150°), mint (165°)
165° - 210° Green to blue solarized (195°), arctic (200°)
210° Blue (Ocean base) ocean, nord
210° - 270° Blue to purple midnight (230°)
260° - 290° Purple dracula (260°), synthwave (270°), violet (280°), grape (290°)
290° - 360° Purple to red sakura (330°), rose (350°)

Color Palette Structure

Semantic Color Mapping

Every generated theme provides these color keys:

Color Key Role Shifts with Hue
bg Main background Yes
bg_dark Darker background panel Yes
bg_highlight Selection/highlight Yes
bg_search Search highlight Yes
bg_visual Visual selection Yes
fg Main foreground text Yes
fg_dark Dimmed foreground Yes
fg_gutter Gutter/line number text Yes
border UI border Yes
ansi_black Terminal black Yes
ansi_blue Terminal blue Yes
ansi_magenta Terminal magenta Yes
ansi_cyan Terminal cyan Yes
ansi_white Terminal white Yes
ansi_red Terminal red Fixed
ansi_green Terminal green Fixed
ansi_yellow Terminal yellow Fixed
cursor Cursor color Fixed

Fixed (semantic) colors retain the original CoolNight Ocean values regardless of the target hue. This ensures that error indicators, success signals, and cursor visibility remain consistent across all variants.

Fixed Semantic Values

Key Fixed Value Reason
ansi_red #E52E2E Error indicator
ansi_green #44FFB1 Success indicator
ansi_yellow #FFE073 Warning indicator
cursor #47FF9C Cursor visibility

Color Relationships

The generator preserves these relationships from the Ocean base:

  • Background colors use the primary hue at very low lightness (dark, saturated base)
  • Foreground colors use the primary hue at high lightness (light, slightly saturated text)
  • Syntax accent colors are hue variations (offsets of ±30° to ±60°)
  • UI chrome colors use desaturated variants of the primary hue

Named Presets

You can use any of the 21 built-in preset names as the --from value:

nvp theme create --from "ocean" --name my-ocean-variant
nvp theme create --from "synthwave" --name custom-synth
nvp theme create --from "forest" --name dark-forest

Using a preset name as --from is equivalent to using that preset's hue angle. The preset names are:

ocean, arctic, midnight, synthwave, violet, grape, forest, matrix, mint, ember, sunset, gold, crimson, sakura, rose, mono-charcoal, mono-slate, mono-warm, nord, dracula, solarized

Next Steps