Tailwind Color Palette

It is v4 — the values come from v4's own default theme. v3.4's defaults were not the same: 187 of the 242 entries differ, some of them visibly (green-400 was #4ade80 and is now #05df72). v4 states them in oklch, so the hex shown here is the sRGB conversion, which is what a browser paints unless the screen is wide-gamut. If you have overridden the colours in your own theme, your project's palette differs from both.

Tailwind ships slate / gray / zinc / neutral / stone as five neutral hues with slightly different undertones: slate is cool blue-leaning, gray is neutral, zinc is cooler / steely, neutral is true neutral, stone is warm taupe. Pick whichever pairs best with your accent.

Tailwind added a darker 950 step in v3.3 alongside the existing 50–900 ladder. It's near-black with a faint hint of the hue, useful for deep dark-mode backgrounds and very subtle borders.

A common working rule is that two shades need roughly five hundred points of separation to be safely readable — 700 text on a 100 background, or 50 on 800. Adjacent steps never contrast enough for body text. That is a starting point rather than a guarantee, because the same numeric gap gives different contrast in different hues, so check the specific pair rather than trusting the arithmetic.

Extend when you need one brand hue alongside a set that already works; replace when your brand has its own scale, since mixing two systems produces neighbouring shades that look almost but not quite alike. Whichever you choose, generate a full range rather than one colour: a single brand hex leaves you without the light background and dark text ends that the rest of the interface depends on.