Audits and repairs color palettes against WCAG contrast thresholds - 4.5:1 for body text, 3:1 for large text and UI components, 7:1 for AAA - and makes them safe for color-blind users, delivering a verified pairing table. Use when someone asks "does this color pass contrast", "make my brand color accessible", "is this palette color-blind safe", "why did my contrast check fail", or is remediating color findings from an audit. Do NOT use to invent a brand palette from scratch - use color-palette-builder instead; for a full accessibility review beyond color, use accessibility-audit.
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name: Color Accessibility
description: Audits and repairs color palettes against WCAG contrast thresholds - 4.5:1 for body text, 3:1 for large text and UI components, 7:1 for AAA - and makes them safe for color-blind users, delivering a verified pairing table. Use when someone asks "does this color pass contrast", "make my brand color accessible", "is this palette color-blind safe", "why did my contrast check fail", or is remediating color findings from an audit. Do NOT use to invent a brand palette from scratch - use color-palette-builder instead; for a full accessibility review beyond color, use accessibility-audit.
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# Color Accessibility
A palette that fails contrast ships a product that a measurable slice of users cannot read: low-vision users lose the text, and roughly 8% of men (and about 0.5% of women) with red-green color blindness lose any meaning carried by hue alone. The costly mistake this skill prevents is approving colors that look fine on a designer's bright monitor and fail on real screens, in sunlight, and in audits - forcing a token-system rework after components already reference the broken values.
## Operating procedure
Work the steps in order: pairings must be enumerated before ratios are computed, and ratios must pass before color-blindness simulation, because a palette that fails contrast is not worth simulating.
### Step 1: Gather inputs
Collect before starting. Label any assumed value as a guess.
1. Brand and functional colors as hex values (primary, semantic red/green/yellow, neutrals).
2. Every background surface they sit on - including dark mode surfaces if one exists.
3. Target conformance: default to WCAG AA. Use AAA (7:1 body, 4.5:1 large) for reading-heavy products, older audiences, or contractual/regulated requirements.
4. Whether text ever sits over images or gradients.
5. Existing token names, so fixes land as token updates, not one-off overrides.
### Step 2: Enumerate every real pairing
… install to load the full skill