Color palette / color scheme
A deliberate, closed set of colors chosen to work together, so every screen pulls from the same short list instead of whatever looked nice that day.
See it
What it is
A palette is a short, closed list of colors a design is allowed to use. The power is in the closing: once the list exists, every screen picks from it instead of from the whole spectrum, and the work starts looking like one product made by one team.
A working palette is usually smaller than people expect. One dominant color (often a near-white or near-black), a family of neutrals, one or two brand hues, one accent reserved for actions, plus status colors for success, warning, and danger. The 60-30-10 rule is the classic proportion guide: 60 percent dominant, 30 percent secondary, 10 percent accent. 'Color scheme' usually means the same thing, though designers lean on it when talking about the relationship between hues (complementary, analogous) rather than the specific swatches.
Gotcha: a palette of six pretty hex codes is not usable yet. Real interfaces need light and dark steps of each color for hover, borders, disabled states, and dark mode, which is why palettes get expanded into color scales and then given semantic roles. Pick colors on the screen they will ship on, not in a moodboard, and check every text pairing for contrast before you fall in love.
Ask AI for it
Create exactly eight swatches for this product: a three-step neutral family subtly tinted toward the brand hue, whose lightest member is the dominant page background; one primary brand color; one high-contrast accent reserved for buttons and links; and success, warning, and danger colors. Apply them in roughly a 60/30/10 proportion. Label every swatch with the role it plays, then list the actual text/background pairs the UI will ship and verify each one clears 4.5:1 contrast. Output the swatches as hex codes with a one-line note on what each is for.