Nightingale.nvim

A Neovim theme ported from the Nightingale VS Code theme, featuring warm tones and excellent readability for long coding sessions. Available in both dark and light variants.

✨ Features

• 🎨 Two Variants: Dark (Nightingale) and Light (Lightingale)
• 🌳 Enhanced TreeSitter: Full semantic highlighting with JSX/TSX support
• 🔍 LSP Semantic Tokens: 26+ semantic token types and modifiers
• 🔌 27+ Plugin Integrations: nvim-cmp, telescope, mini.nvim suite, bufferline, trouble, alpha, illuminate, and more
• 🖥️ 16 Terminal/Editor Themes: Alacritty, Kitty, iTerm2, Helix, Fish, Lazygit, and more
• ⚡ Performance: Optimized for fast startup times
• 🎯 Consistency: Single color palette source across all integrations

🎨 Variants

Nightingale (Dark)

The theme uses a carefully selected palette of warm, comfortable colors designed for long coding sessions:

• Background: Deep warm dark tones (#202020)
• Foreground: Soft cream/beige (#ffffff / #DCD7BA)
• Syntax: Greens (#98BB6C), Blues (#85a8da), Purples (#a584c0), and warm accents
• UI: Subtle grays and warm borders

Lightingale (Light)

A light variant with inverted colors from the dark theme, maintaining the same visual harmony:

• Background: Soft light gray (#dfdfdf)
• Foreground: Very dark gray for excellent contrast
• Syntax: Darkened, saturated colors optimized for light backgrounds
• UI: Clean, comfortable interface perfect for bright environments

📦 Requirements

• Neovim >= 0.8.0
• termguicolors enabled

📥 Installation

lazy.nvim

{
    "xeind/nightingale.nvim",
    lazy = false,
    priority = 1000,
    config = function()
        require("nightingale").setup({
            transparent = false, -- set to true for transparent background
        })
        vim.cmd("colorscheme nightingale")
    end,
}

packer.nvim

use {
    "xeind/nightingale.nvim",
    config = function()
        require("nightingale").setup()
        vim.cmd("colorscheme nightingale")
    end
}

vim-plug

Plug 'xeind/nightingale.nvim'

Then in your config:

require("nightingale").setup()
vim.cmd("colorscheme nightingale")

🚀 Usage

Basic Usage

-- Dark theme
vim.cmd("colorscheme nightingale")

-- Light theme
vim.cmd("colorscheme lightingale")

Quick Toggle Between Variants

-- Switch to dark theme
require('nightingale').load('nightingale')

-- Switch to light theme
require('nightingale').load('lightingale')

-- Keybindings example
vim.keymap.set('n', '<leader>td', function()
    require('nightingale').load('nightingale')
end, { desc = 'Dark theme' })

vim.keymap.set('n', '<leader>tl', function()
    require('nightingale').load('lightingale')
end, { desc = 'Light theme' })

⚙️ Configuration

Default configuration (no need to call setup if you're okay with defaults):

require('nightingale').setup({
    compile = false,             -- enable compiling the colorscheme
    undercurl = true,            -- enable undercurls
    commentStyle = { italic = true },
    functionStyle = { italic = true },
    keywordStyle = { italic = true, bold = true },
    statementStyle = {},
    typeStyle = {},
    numberStyle = {},            -- disabled by default
    transparent = false,         -- do not set background color
    dimInactive = false,         -- dim inactive window `:h hl-NormalNC`
    terminalColors = true,       -- define vim.g.terminal_color_{0,17}
    theme = "nightingale",       -- "nightingale" (dark) or "lightingale" (light)
    colors = {                   -- add/modify theme and palette colors
        palette = {},
        theme = {
            nightingale = {},    -- dark theme overrides
            lightingale = {}     -- light theme overrides
        },
    },
    overrides = function(colors) -- add/modify highlights
        return {}
    end,
})

vim.cmd("colorscheme nightingale")

Customization Examples

require('nightingale').setup({
    -- Enable transparent background
    transparent = true,

    -- Customize styles
    commentStyle = { italic = true },
    functionStyle = { italic = true },
    keywordStyle = { italic = true, bold = true },
    numberStyle = { italic = true },

    -- Dim inactive windows
    dimInactive = true,

    -- Custom highlight overrides
    overrides = function(colors)
        local theme = colors.theme
        return {
            LineNr = { fg = theme.ui.fg_dim, bold = true },
            CursorLineNr = { fg = theme.diag.warning, bold = true },
            TelescopeBorder = { fg = theme.ui.float.fg_border },
        }
    end,
})

All extras use the same color palette for perfect consistency across your entire development environment.

📖 View detailed installation guide →

🎨 Color Palette

Core Colors

-- Syntax
green   = "#98BB6C"  -- Strings, success
blue    = "#85a8da"  -- Functions, primary
cyan    = "#7cd0bf"  -- Types, constants
purple  = "#a584c0"  -- Keywords, control flow
orange  = "#f5a284"  -- Constants, numbers
red     = "#ee5d43"  -- Errors, warnings
yellow  = "#E6C384"  -- Identifiers, parameters

-- UI
fg      = "#ffffff"  -- Main foreground
fg2     = "#DCD7BA"  -- Secondary foreground
bg      = "#202020"  -- Main background
gray    = "#727169"  -- Comments, disabled text

Semantic Mappings

• Strings/Success: Green (#98BB6C)
• Functions: Blue (#85a8da)
• Types: Cyan (#7cd0bf)
• Keywords: Purple (#a584c0)
• Constants: Orange (#f5a284)
• Errors: Red (#ee5d43)
• Parameters: Yellow (#E6C384)
• Comments: Gray (#727169)

🆚 Comparison with Other Themes

Feature	Nightingale	TokyoNight	Kanagawa
Variants	2 (Dark/Light)	4 variants	3 variants
Plugin Highlights	540+ groups	600+ groups	400+ groups
Supported Plugins	27+ plugins	58 plugins	20+ plugins
Terminal Themes	16 extras	46 extras	21 extras
LSP Tokens	26+ tokens	Full coverage	20+ tokens
Color Philosophy	Warm, comfortable	Cool, vibrant	Traditional Japanese
Architecture	Monolithic	Modular	Monolithic

Nightingale's Strength: Quality over quantity - comprehensive support for the most popular plugins with excellent color consistency.

🛣️ Roadmap

Current Focus

• ✅ Enhanced LSP semantic tokens
• ✅ Full JSX/TSX support
• ✅ 16 terminal/editor themes
• ✅ 27+ plugin integrations
• ✅ Documentation improvements

Planned Features

• 🔍 lspsaga support (enhanced LSP UI)
• 🎨 More terminal themes (gitui, btop, delta)
• 🤖 Automated extra generation system (future)

🙏 Acknowledgments

• Original Nightingale VS Code Theme by bfrangi
• Theme structure inspired by kanagawa.nvim
• Plugin integration patterns from tokyonight.nvim

📄 License

MIT