Curated Colors

Curated Colors replaces color select lists and free-form color pickers with a visual swatch popover backed by named, exportable palettes. Editors choose from an approved set of named colors organized into groups and see a live preview of their selection before saving.

Palettes are stored as config, so they're exportable and tracked in git like any other configuration. The stored value is a key (brand-primary, not #0678be), keeping actual color values in your stylesheet. Brand updates become CSS changes rather than content migrations.

An example submodule (curated_colors_example) ships with the module and includes a sample palette config, a working SDC component, and a CSS class example showing the full pattern.

Features

Palettes

Palettes are config entities managed at /admin/config/content/curated-colors. Each color entry has a machine key, a human-readable label, an optional hex value for the admin preview, and an optional custom CSS string for gradients or anything a single hex can't express. Colors can be organized into named groups and dragged to reorder, with live preview swatches in the editor.

Field type

The curated_color field type stores a single color key. Field settings let you choose a palette and optionally restrict the picker to specific groups within it.

The field exposes computed properties for use in Twig templates and SDC props:

Field widget

The picker widget replaces the default select with a swatch-based popover, with colors organized into labeled group sections. The popover is viewport-aware and positions itself to stay on screen.

Form element

The picker is also available as a standalone Form API element for use on non entity forms:

$form['color'] = [
  '#type' => 'curated_color_picker',
  '#title' => $this->t('Accent color'),
  '#palette_id' => 'brand',
  '#allowed_groups' => ['primary', 'secondary'],
  '#default_value' => '',
];

Canvas integration

With the Canvas module installed, any SDC string prop annotated with x-curated-color-palette uses the swatch picker in the component editor, whether the prop is bound to a field or set as a static value.

# my_component.component.yml
props:
  properties:
    color:
      type: string
      x-curated-color-palette: brand

Formatters

Two field formatters are included: a swatch chip with label, and a plain value formatter that can output the key, hex, label, or CSS string.

Using color keys in your theme

Render colors from your stylesheet, not from the stored value. The picker stores hex/custom CSS so the admin UI can preview the palette; in production, map the color key to a CSS class or custom-property name so your theme owns the actual color values. See the colored_card component in the examples submodule for a worked example.

.my-component--brand-primary .my-component__accent { background: #0678be; }
.my-component--brand-warm    .my-component__accent { background: linear-gradient(…); }

For inline styles, SVG fills, or email templates where a CSS class won't work, the computed css property returns a background declaration ready to use in a style attribute. The example submodule (curated_colors_example) shows both approaches with a working SDC component.

Beyond colors: style selectors

The underlying mechanism is a constrained key picker with a visual chooser, which works for any set of options that have visual meaning.

Button style variants are a common example. Instead of a palette of hex values, define a palette of style options:

The same approach works for card styles, hero text treatments, section backgrounds, icon themes, and any other field where editors are picking a visual variant. Palette groups let you combine related variants (button-style, card-style, hero-style) in one palette and use the field's group restriction to show only what's relevant for each field.