espectro.dev

Espectro is a free, non-commercial web project built around Sanzo Wada's Dictionary of Color Combinations — a 1930s Japanese reference of 159 colors and 348 curated palettes that designers and artists still use today.

The site lets you browse every color and combination, with hex, RGB, CMYK, and L*a*b* values, and view palettes as swatches. There's a public JSON API (no auth, rate-limited) so apps and scripts can fetch colors and combinations programmatically.

For AI-assisted workflows, Espectro exposes the same data via MCP (Model Context Protocol) so tools like Cursor and Claude can search colors, fetch palettes, and export combinations as Tailwind config or CSS variables. A small Laravel package (labrodev/laravel-mcp-espectro) acts as a connector: one Artisan command sets up your project to talk to the hosted MCP server so Cursor picks it up automatically.

The color data comes from the open-source mattdesl/dictionary-of-colour-combinations (MIT). The project doesn't claim any rights over Wada's public-domain work; it's meant to make his palettes easy to use on the web, in code, and inside AI tools.

• • The Laravel MCP connector package sets up your project to talk to the hosted Espectro MCP server.
• • Run the Artisan command after installation so Cursor picks up the MCP server automatically.
• • Public JSON API is available with no authentication — rate-limited for fair usage.
• • Supports export as Tailwind config or CSS variables via MCP.