vscode: is there an api for accessing config values from a vscode extension

I am writing an extension for vscode 1.12.2 and I am trying to determine the default theme. Atom Editor has a nice API for accessing config values, e.g.:

atom.config.defaultSettings.core.themes[0]
"one-dark-ui"
atom.config.defaultSettings.core.themes[1]
"one-dark-syntax"

Is there something similar to this in vscode?

I can see the value 'workbench.colorTheme' in ~/AppData/Roaming/Code/User/settings.json:

   // "terminal.integrated.shell.windows": "/Program Files/Git/bin/bash.exe"
    "terminal.integrated.shell.windows": "C:\\Windows\\System32\\cmd.exe",
    "terminal.integrated.shellArgs.windows": [
        "/k",
        "C:\\Program Files\\Git\\bin\\bash.exe"
    ],
    "workbench.colorTheme": "Default Light+" <-- here

However, I'd rather not resort to a custom solution whereby I directly read the config file as JSON, especially since it allows non-default JSON values such as comments, which I would presumably have to pre-parse-out.

While this question is narrowly directed at determining the theme, it really applies to any config parm. I didn't see anything in the vscode html api or in browsing the typings file /c/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft VS Code/resources/app/out/vs/vscode.d.ts