Theme Mode and Contrast

Scholarly separates palette choice from readable foreground/background tokens. Use colorTheme for identity, contentMode for the normal slide surface, chromeMode for headers, footers, navigation, TOC, and toolbar surfaces, and sectionMode for section dividers.

Recommended defaults

Starter templates omit contentMode, so new decks follow Slidev's light/dark state automatically. Pin the projection-oriented combination below when you need a predictable light paper surface in every environment.

themeConfig:
  colorTheme: classic-blue
  fontTheme: classic
  contentMode: light
  chromeMode: dark
  sectionMode: dark

• Use contentMode: light for citation-heavy, text-heavy, or figure-heavy slides.
• Use chromeMode: dark when you want Beamer-like navigation and footer contrast.
• Use sectionMode: dark for chapter breaks where large text dominates.
• Use sectionMode: match for all-light or all-dark decks, and sectionMode: inverse for contrast against the content surface.
• Use high-contrast when the deck will be projected in bright rooms.
• Use monochrome when screenshots, charts, or code should dominate the palette.

Quote and Highlight safety

The risky combination is dark semantic backgrounds with dark body text. The P0 token model maps quote, Highlight, Block, and component surfaces through mode-aware semantic tokens, but slide authors should still avoid long dark highlight regions on light slides.

Prefer:

• Short inline Highlight spans over full paragraph highlights.
• Block or EvidenceBlock when the content needs a title and body.
• type="warning" only for actual warnings; use type="info" or type="primary" for neutral emphasis.
• high-contrast for accessibility review before export.

Quick check

Run the doctor and a visual export before sharing:

pnpm exec sch doctor
pnpm run theme:matrix

For a faster local check without Playwright export:

node scripts/check-theme-matrix.mjs --dry-run