color-sorter

April 20, 2026 · View on GitHub

Sort CSS colors by hue, then by saturation. Black-grey-white colors (colors with 0% saturation) are shifted to the end. Fully transparent colors are placed at the very end.

This sorting algorithm is very opinionated and might not fit your needs!

Usage

import { sort_fn, sort } from 'color-sorter'
var colors = ['#000', 'red', 'hsl(0, 10%, 60%)']
var sorted = colors.sort(sort_fn)
// Or:
// sorted = sort(colors)

// => sorted:
// [
//  'red',
//  'hsl(0, 10%, 60%)',
//  '#000'
// ]

Example usage on Stackblitz

API

`convert`

Convert any CSS color to a color that we can use for comparison. Returns black in case parsing fails.

import { convert } from 'color-sorter'
const color = convert('#f00')
// => { hue: 0, saturation: 100, lightness: 50, alpha: 1, authored: '#f00' }

`compare`

Compare two converted colors to know where they must go while sorting.

import { convert, compare } from 'color-sorter'
const red = convert('rgb(255 0 0)')
const green = convert('#0f0')
const result = compare(red, green)
// => result < 0, making sure red ends up before green

`color_group`

Get the named group of a given color. Useful for making groups of colors.

import { color_group, convert } from 'color-sorter'
const color = convert('rgb(255 0 0)')
const group = color_group(color) // => 'red'

`sort_fn`

Callback sorting function that can be passed to a .sort() or toSorted(). Uses compare internally.

import { sort_fn } from 'color-sorter'
const sorted = ['rebeccapurple', '#f00'].toSorted(sort_fn)
//=> ['#f00', 'rebeccapurple']

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