Colour Memory API

Colour intelligence with receipts.

17,346 named colours across 44 cultural archives. 55 MCP tools. Every colour anchored to a primary source citation. The colour reasoning layer for AI agents, design teams, and brands.

---

What it does

Most colour APIs answer one question: what colours go together? Colour Memory answers every question colour has ever raised.

• Brand audit — palette roles, WCAG matrix, cultural risk, CSS tokens in one call
• Image generation loop — archive-grounded briefs + fidelity verification with dE2000
• Accessibility intelligence — every pair, every grade, design-system rules
• Developer tokens — CSS variable, Tailwind class, TypeScript const from archive names
• Cultural risk — per-colour, per-market warnings across 12 global markets
• Archive search — keyword search across 17,346 colours
• Brand system — complete colour system: roles, typography, light/dark maps, tokens, PDF
• Asset pack export — CSS, Figma tokens, Markdown brand guide, and PDF in one call

---

Quick start

MCP (Claude, any MCP-compatible agent)

Add this URL to your MCP client:

https://colour-memory-api-production.up.railway.app/mcp

All 55 tools load instantly. No config required. Demo key included.

REST API

# Match a hex to the archive
curl -X POST https://colour-memory-api-production.up.railway.app/query/hex \
  -H "X-Api-Key: cm_demo_colourmemory_website_internal" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"hex": "D4A829"}'

# Brand audit
curl -X POST https://colour-memory-api-production.up.railway.app/brand/audit \
  -H "X-Api-Key: cm_demo_colourmemory_website_internal" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"palette": ["#D4A829","#1A5C6E","#0F2D6B","#0A0A0B"]}'

# Complete brand system
curl -X POST https://colour-memory-api-production.up.railway.app/brand/system \
  -H "X-Api-Key: cm_demo_colourmemory_website_internal" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"palette": ["#D4A829","#1A5C6E","#0F2D6B","#0A0A0B"], "brand_name": "Acme"}'

# Palette quality audit
curl -X POST https://colour-memory-api-production.up.railway.app/palette/quality-audit \
  -H "X-Api-Key: cm_demo_colourmemory_website_internal" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"palette": ["#D4A829","#1A5C6E","#0F2D6B","#0A0A0B"]}'

# Brand asset pack (CSS + Figma tokens + PDF)
curl -X POST https://colour-memory-api-production.up.railway.app/brand/asset-pack \
  -H "X-Api-Key: cm_demo_colourmemory_website_internal" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"palette": ["#D4A829","#1A5C6E","#0F2D6B","#0A0A0B"], "brand_name": "Acme", "include_pdf": true}'

Demo key: cm_demo_colourmemory_website_internal

Get a free key at colourmemory.com

---

The 55 MCP tools

Search and Lookup

Tool	What it does
query_hex	CIEDE2000 nearest archive match with cultural narrative, RAL, accessibility
query_conceptual	Semantic search by concept, mood, or culture
get_colour_card	Direct lookup of any named archive colour with full provenance
get_colour_metrics	LRV, chroma, hue angle, three-illuminant shift
get_harmonies	Complementary, triadic, analogous harmonies from the archive
archive_search	Keyword search across all 17,346 archive colours

Palette Tools

Tool	What it does
palette_from_concept	Hue-diverse palette from cultural concept with archive provenance
strict_palette_from_concept	Like above but with archive filter and relevance controls
palette_generate	Lock some slots, fill the rest from the archive
palette_translate	Map any palette into a named archive
palette_iterate	Refine a palette with natural language feedback
palette_compare	Deep comparison of two palettes
palette_export	Export to CSS, Figma, Tailwind, ASE, JSON
palette_verdict	Score a palette 0-100 with weakness and suggested addition
palette_light_dark	Light and dark mode role maps
palette_quality_audit	Full audit: accessibility, cultural risk, diversity, naming. Grade + fix list
palette_pdf	Generate premium PDF specification sheet
specify_palette	Full interior specification from 2-8 hex values
mix_colours	Perceptual Lab subtractive mixing

Brand Intelligence

Tool	What it does
brand_audit	Palette roles, WCAG matrix, cultural risk, design tokens. No LLM cost
brand_system	Complete brand system: roles, typography, light/dark maps, tokens, narrative
brand_asset_pack	Full asset pack: CSS, Tailwind, Figma tokens, brand guide MD, PDF
brand_report	One-call complete brand report with copy and image brief
colour_strategy	Full brand colour strategy with archive anchor and market readings
colour_verdict	Use/caution/avoid with strengths, risks, and market analysis

Colour Intelligence

Tool	What it does
colour_name_generator	Archive-verified product colour names with provenance citations
colour_name_slugs	CSS var, Tailwind, TypeScript, kebab, camelCase, SCSS
colour_dna	Compact semantic fingerprint
colour_story	Cultural narrative across the full archive
colour_timeline	Historical appearances across cultures and centuries
compare_colours	Deep perceptual and semantic comparison
colour_forensics	Specification safety on any substrate
cultural_risk_assessment	Cultural sensitivity across global markets
cliche_breaker	Find the archive contradiction to a colour concept
memory_hooks	Hook sentence, story, tweet, image prompt
provenance_explain	Separates fact, computation, and interpretation
colour_combination_check	2-5 colours assessed for harmony and clash by context

Accessibility and Physics

Tool	What it does
accessibility_check	WCAG 2.1 AA/AAA contrast ratios
accessibility_matrix	Full palette matrix. Every pair, every grade, one call
accessibility_usage_rules	Matrix to design-system rules: safe pairs, large-text-only, decorative-only
simulate_colour_blindness	Protanopia, deuteranopia, tritanopia simulation
match_paint_system	Nearest Farrow & Ball and Paint & Paper Library
colour_variants	Lighter, darker, cultural sibling variants
font_colour_advisor	Best foreground for any background from a palette

Agent and Image

Tool	What it does
agent_brief	Archive-grounded image generation prompt for Midjourney, DALL-E, Flux
verify_agent_palette	Image fidelity scoring with dE2000 per colour
analyse_image_palette	Extract dominant palette from image, matched to archive
personal_colour_analysis	Seasonal colour analysis from portrait photo

Compound Tools

Tool	What it does
design_session	One call: concept to complete palette, narrative, paint matches, accessibility
interior_specification	Complete room spec with surface assignments and illuminant behaviour

Archive and Discovery

Tool	What it does
archive_status	Live status: total colours, per-archive breakdown
archive_audit	Data quality report with health score
capabilities	Live endpoint inventory
style_match	Outfit colour matching with archive grounding
ecommerce_product_copy	Complete ecommerce copy with archive provenance

---

The 44 archives

Colour Memory, RAL Classic, BS4800, Farrow & Ball, Paint & Paper Library, NCS, Munsell, Werner-Syme, Oxfordshire, British, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Islamic, Ottoman, Byzantine, China, Japan, Morocco, India, West Africa, Russia, Architecture, Shakespeare, Austen, Keats, Pigment Historical, Pigment Heritage, Roman Britain, Norman Medieval, Racing Silks, and more.

---

Adding a new archive

# Rename CSV to lowercase, copy to data/, add to list in main.py
cd ~/Desktop/colour-memory-api
cp ~/Downloads/myarchive.csv data/
# Add "myarchive" to the archives list in main.py
git add data/myarchive.csv main.py
git commit -m "Add myarchive"
git push
# Railway autodeploys in ~90 seconds

---

Pricing

Tier	Price	Calls/month
Trial	Free	50
Studio	£12/mo	2,000
Pro	£39/mo	10,000
Enterprise	£149/mo	50,000
Bespoke	£999/mo	Unlimited

Get your key at colourmemory.com

---

Architecture

• Runtime: FastAPI on Railway
• Archive matching: CIEDE2000 nearest-neighbour with FAISS index
• Colour science: CIE Lab, LRV, chroma, three-illuminant simulation
• Embeddings: Sentence-transformer semantic index for conceptual search
• Auth: API key via header X-Api-Key
• MCP: Standard MCP endpoint at /mcp

---

Brand

Colour Memory is designed by Colour Memory. Every brand colour was selected through the API, queried against the archive, scored for cultural depth and commercial strength, and exported as CSS tokens.

• Song Gold Sycee #D4A829 — China archive, Song dynasty
• Northanger Abbey Pool #1A5C6E — Austen archive
• Saimaa Juhannus #0F2D6B — Finland archive
• Velvet Black #0A0A0B — Werner-Syme 1814
• Archive Parchment #F4EFE5 — Architecture archive

---

Legal

UK Trademark 00004387450 · Classes 9, 35 & 42 · © 2026 PR Eye Ltd, Oxfordshire

Archive Lab values are derived from hex codes, not spectrophotometry. Provenance is always cited. Anti-hallucination is the core brand proposition.

colourmemory.com · hello@colourmemory.com