icons

name

icons

description

Generate New UI icons for the IntelliJ Platform. Use when creating, editing, or reviewing SVG icons for the New UI — action icons (16×16), tree-node icons (16×16), tool-window icons (16×16 + 20×20), main-toolbar icons (20×20), editor-gutter icons (12×12 / 14×14), status-bar icons, and other system icons. Produces a light and a `_dark` variant that share geometry and use the canonical New UI palette so the icons theme correctly in both themes.

IntelliJ Platform New UI Icons

Guidance for authoring SVG icons for the New UI.

Background: the IDE maintains Classic UI and New UI in parallel. Code branches with ExperimentalUI.isNewUI(); icons follow the same split. Old icons stay in their original resource folders for Classic-UI compatibility. New-UI icons live under expui/ folders and are substituted for the old ones at runtime by icon mappers.

Golden rules

1. Always ship two SVGs — one for the light theme (e.g. addFile.svg) and one for the dark theme with the _dark suffix (addFile_dark.svg). Geometry must be identical between them; only the palette swaps.
   • Tool-window icons ship as a quartet, not a pair. When a tool window has both a 16×16 base (name.svg / name_dark.svg) and a 20×20 New-UI stripe variant ([e-mail] / name@20x20_dark.svg), they must share the same metaphor. The stripe is only one surface — the 16×16 base also appears in Search Everywhere, Find Action, context menus, the Services tool window, recent locations, and the View ▸ Tool Windows menu. Changing only the @20x20 leaves users seeing two different icons for the same tool window depending on where they encounter it. Always update all four files together (and the same applies to plugin-local icons like toolWindowChat.svg + [e-mail]).
2. Only use colors from the canonical palette. See palette.md. Picking a one-off color breaks theming and contrast.
3. One canvas size per icon role. See Icon roles. Do not invent new sizes or pad with empty space — IntelliJ scales the canvas as a single unit.
4. No raster, no gradients, no filters, no embedded fonts. Path geometry only (<path>, <rect>, <circle>, <line>, <polyline>, <polygon>). Text must be converted to outlines.
5. Use fill="none" on the root <svg> and set fill / stroke explicitly per shape — never rely on CSS or currentColor.
6. Strokes use stroke-width="1", stroke-linecap="round", stroke-linejoin="round" (or stroke-miterlimit="10" for hard joins). Heavier strokes are reserved for hero glyphs inside a circle badge (e.g. status checkmarks) and use stroke-width="1.5" or "2".
7. Pixel-grid align: keep stroke axes on half-pixel centers (x.5) and fills on whole pixels so the icon stays crisp at 1× rendering.
8. Preserve the Apache 2.0 copyright comment as line 1. Match the year of contribution.
9. File names use camelCase matching the action/node ID and stay ASCII-only.

Icon roles

Role	Canvas	Filename pattern	Reference dir
Action icons (menus, popups, toolbars)	16×16	name.svg + name_dark.svg	expui/actions/, expui/general/
Tree node icons (PSI, structure view)	16×16	name.svg + name_dark.svg	expui/nodes/
Tool-window stripe icons (legacy/16)	16×16	name.svg + name_dark.svg	expui/toolwindows/
Tool-window stripe icons (New UI)	20×20	[e-mail] + name@20x20_dark.svg	expui/toolwindows/
Main toolbar (New UI)	20×20	[e-mail] + name@20x20_dark.svg	expui/general/, expui/run/, expui/toolbar/
Editor gutter icons	14×14 (small marks 12×12, 9×9)	name.svg + name_dark.svg	expui/gutter/
Status bar / inline status	16×16	name.svg + name_dark.svg	expui/status/, expui/inline/
Breakpoint marks	14×14 (12×12 for sub-marks)	name.svg + name_dark.svg	expui/breakpoints/
Run-config tags & disclosure chevrons	16×16 (chevron*.svg may be 9×9 to 16×16)	name.svg + name_dark.svg	expui/run/, expui/general/
Welcome/onboarding & logos (system)	16, 20, 28, 48 (per surface)	name.svg + name_dark.svg	expui/ide/, expui/welcome/

When in doubt, find a sibling icon in the same folder and copy its width / height / viewBox.

Where the SVGs live

Two placements exist and both are valid — pick based on whether a Classic-UI icon already exists:

• Only New UI needed → put the SVG (and its _dark sibling) under an expui/<role>/ resource root. Callers reference it directly through the plugin's generated <Plugin>Icons class.
• Replacing an existing Classic-UI icon → keep the Classic file at its old path, put the New UI SVG under the matching expui/<role>/ path, and add a mapping entry to the nearest *IconMappings.json. At runtime, when ExperimentalUI.isNewUI() is true, the mapper substitutes the New UI file for the Classic one so no caller has to change its icon reference.

Mapping-file shape (excerpt from community/platform/icons/src/PlatformIconMappings.json):

{
  "expui": {
    "actions": {
      "addFile.svg": "actions/addFile.svg",
      "checked.svg": ["actions/checked.svg", "actions/setDefault.svg"]
    }
  }
}

Key = path relative to the expui/ root (the New UI file). Value = the Classic path(s) that should resolve to it. A single New UI icon may back multiple Classic paths.

SVG skeleton

<!-- Copyright 2000-2026 JetBrains s.r.o. and contributors. Use of this source code is governed by the Apache 2.0 license. -->
<svg width="16" height="16" viewBox="0 0 16 16" fill="none" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg">
  <!-- shapes, ordered back-to-front -->
</svg>

The dark variant is the same file with light-palette colors swapped for their dark-theme partner — see palette.md. Never change geometry between the two.

Composition rules

• One semantic meaning per icon. A status badge, an accent dot, or a "+" overlay is fine; two unrelated glyphs in one icon is not.
• Optical centering, not geometric. Plus/arrow/refresh glyphs sit slightly above center; round badges (class, method, status) are centered on (cx=8, cy=8) for 16×16 and (cx=10, cy=10) for 20×20.
• Outer keep-out: leave at least 1 px of empty padding on each side of a 16×16 icon (so meaningful geometry lives within 1..15). For 20×20 use 2 px of padding. Stripe icons must stay visually balanced inside their 20×20 cell.
• Stroke + fill pairing for node-style icons (e.g. nodes/class.svg): a light-tinted fill at radius 6.5 with a stroke in the accent color, plus a glyph filled with the same accent.
  • Light: <circle cx="8" cy="8" r="6.5" fill="<accent-bg-light>" stroke="<accent-light>"/> then glyph fill="<accent-light>".
  • Dark: same circle with fill="<accent-bg-dark>" stroke="<accent-dark>" and glyph filled with <accent-dark>.
• Stroke-only icons (chevrons, refresh, edit pencil): a single-color path using the neutral stroke (#6C707E light / #CED0D6 dark) at stroke-width="1". Use #818594 (light) / #6F737A (dark) for "secondary" stroke glyphs like dropdown chevrons.
• Status badges (error/warning/success/info) follow this template:
  • Light: filled circle/triangle in the accent color, glyph painted in white.
  • Dark: filled circle/triangle in the dark accent color, glyph painted in the matching muted dark fill (e.g. #5E4D33 inside #F2C55C warning) — never plain white.
• Two-tone action icons (e.g. actions/addFile.svg): the base glyph uses the neutral gray, and the small "modifier" (+, ✕, ↻, gear) uses the primary blue accent. Light gray + blue accent → dark gray + blue accent in the dark variant.
• Disabled / stroke-only variants (e.g. *_stroke.svg): outline-only, same neutral stroke color, no fills.

Palette quick reference

The full lookup is in palette.md. Most icons only need:

Role	Light	Dark
Primary stroke / fill	#6C707E	#CED0D6
Secondary stroke	#818594	#6F737A
Disabled / faint fill	#EBECF0	#43454A
Accent — Blue	#3574F0	#548AF7
Accent — Blue (bg)	#EDF3FF / #E7EFFD	#25324D
Accent — Red	#DB3B4B	#DB5C5C
Accent — Red (bg)	#FFF7F7	#402929
Status — Error fill	#E55765	#DB5C5C
Status — Warning fill	#FFAF0F	#F2C55C
Status — Success fill	#55A76A	#57965C
Accent — Green	#208A3C	#57965C
Accent — Green (bg)	#F2FCF3	#253627
Accent — Orange	#E66D17	#C77D55
Accent — Orange (bg)	#FFF4EB	#45322B
Accent — Yellow/Gold	#FFAF0F / #C27D04	#F2C55C / #D6AE58
Accent — Purple	#834DF0	#B589EC
Accent — Purple (bg)	#FAF5FF	#2F2936
White on dark badge	white	matching muted-dark fill (e.g. #5E4D33)

Do not use plain #000000 or off-the-palette grays.

Generation workflow

1. Pick the role and canvas size from the table above. Find at least two visually similar siblings under community/platform/icons/src/expui/<role>/ and read their SVG sources. Mirror their stroke/fill mix.
2. Lay out geometry on the pixel grid (whole-pixel fills, half-pixel stroke centers). Optical-center the glyph.
3. Apply the canonical light palette from palette.md. Never invent colors.
4. Save the light SVG with the Apache 2.0 header, width/height/viewBox matching the role, and fill="none" on <svg>.
5. Duplicate to the _dark filename and swap each color for its dark-theme partner from the palette mapping. Keep paths byte-identical otherwise.
6. Place and wire the file:
   • Fresh New UI icon → drop into the matching expui/<role>/ resource folder; reference it from the plugin's <Plugin>Icons class.
   • Replacement for a Classic icon → keep the Classic file untouched, add the New UI file under expui/<role>/, add a mapping entry to the nearest *IconMappings.json. Callers keep referencing the old path.
7. Verify visually in both themes via the image preview in the IDE, or run the IDE and toggle View ▸ Appearance ▸ New UI to compare. Check selection states for stripe icons.

Common mistakes

• Off-palette colors (e.g. importing from Figma without remapping). They will not theme correctly and reviewers will reject the PR.
• Different geometry between light and dark variants — selection animations and HiDPI overlays will glitch.
• A 16-px glyph saved into a 20×20 canvas without re-balancing. Tool-window/main-toolbar icons need geometry tuned for 20×20, not a 16×16 reused with extra whitespace.
• Using currentColor, CSS, or <style> blocks. The IntelliJ icon loader requires explicit colors on every shape so it can do palette-based recoloring.
• Forgetting the _dark variant. The icon will look fine in Light theme then turn invisible in Dark.
• Pure-black (#000) or pure-white (#FFF) fills outside the status-badge glyph pattern. They break under accent recoloring.
• Adding a New UI SVG without a *IconMappings.json entry when replacing a Classic icon — the Classic icon will keep showing in New UI mode.

References

• palette.md — full color palette with light↔dark mapping.
• examples.md — annotated SVG snippets for each icon role, copied from the live icon set.
• Canonical example tree: community/platform/icons/src/expui/ — when reviewing, diff your new icon against a sibling there.
• Repo-level Icons guidelines.svg is a design sheet (visual reference only; not machine-readable). When it disagrees with the folder, trust the folder.