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Chart Color Tokens

Make every chart in the app draw from one palette that stays readable for everyone.

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What it adds

A token set covering series colours, fills, grid lines, axis and label text, and hover, selected, and muted states across the app's charts.

What your agent is told to do

5
  1. 1

    Collect the colours currently hardcoded in the app's charts and reduce them to a categorical series scale, a sequential scale, a diverging scale, and a small set of neutrals for grid lines, axes, and labels.

  2. 2

    Fix the assignment order of the categorical scale so the same series gets the same colour in every chart on the page and across reloads, keyed on the series identity rather than its index in the current filtered result.

  3. 3

    Define interaction states as derived tokens — hover, selected, muted, and disabled — so a highlighted series is emphasised by dimming the others rather than by swapping in an unrelated colour.

  4. 4

    Check every adjacent pair in the categorical scale for separation under the common colour-vision deficiencies and for contrast against both the light and dark chart backgrounds, and reorder or replace entries until they hold.

  5. 5

    Do not treat colour as the only carrier of meaning. Pair it with a shape, dash pattern, or direct label; the textual alternative to the chart itself is owned by Accessible Chart Summary and should not be duplicated here.

Edge cases it handles

7
  • Series must remain distinguishable to viewers with deuteranopia, protanopia, and tritanopia, so red against green and any pair separated only by hue at similar lightness has to go — vary lightness as well as hue.
  • Semantic colours carry an assumption that is not universal: green for up and red for down inverts in some markets, and in a cost or emissions chart a rising line is bad news. Reserve semantic tokens for genuinely semantic quantities and use the neutral categorical scale for everything else.
  • Colour alone cannot carry a series identity. Provide dash patterns or markers for lines, fill patterns or direct labels for areas and bars, so a printed or greyscale copy is still readable.
  • A chart with more series than the palette holds must not wrap around and reuse colours, which silently implies two series are the same. Define an overflow behaviour — group the tail into an other bucket, or switch to a scale designed for many categories and add direct labels.
  • A single-series chart should use one deliberate colour, not the first entry of the categorical scale by accident.
  • Grid lines and axis labels need enough contrast to be read but must sit visually behind the data; give them their own neutral tokens rather than a transparency applied to a series colour.
  • Charts exported as images take the theme they were rendered in, so a dark-theme export dropped into a light document must still be legible or must be re-rendered on a light background.

Definition of done

9
  • No chart in the app contains a hardcoded colour value.
  • The same series renders in the same colour across every chart and across reloads.
  • Every adjacent pair in the categorical scale is distinguishable under simulated colour-vision deficiency and in greyscale.
  • Series carry a non-colour identifier as well as a colour.
  • Hover, selected, and muted states are derived tokens applied consistently.
  • Charts with more series than the palette follow a defined overflow rule rather than repeating colours.
  • Grid lines, axes, and labels meet contrast requirements in both light and dark themes.
  • The feature matches the existing design system.
  • No existing functionality is broken.

Related features

How it works

  1. 1

    Copy the link

    Grab the Markdown instruction URL for this feature.

  2. 2

    Give it to your AI

    Paste it into Claude Code, Cursor, v0, Lovable — whatever you build with.

  3. 3

    It inspects, then implements

    Your agent reads your existing app first, then adds the feature to fit it.

Works with your stack

These instructions are written to adapt. They tell the agent to detect your framework, match your existing design system, and reuse what you already have — rather than assuming a particular stack.

Need it tighter than that? Customize the feature and tell it exactly what you're running.