Indie projects do not need a full brand identity. They need five colors that look intentional, work in dark mode, and stop looking like a default Tailwind template.
The fastest path. Pick a mood that matches the project — 'tech' for developer tools, 'playful' for consumer apps, 'professional' for finance, 'energetic' for fitness. Hit randomize three times. Lock the seed when one feels right. Switch the rule to split complementary if you want a friendly accent, triadic if you want a stronger one.
Five colors out, five minutes in. Now spend the next five minutes on the contrast table. Body text on light surface needs 4.5:1 minimum. Primary button on light surface needs 4.5:1 if the label is body-sized. Accent badge on either surface needs 3:1. If anything fails, hit randomize again rather than fighting the seed.
Dark mode is a freebie because the generator already produces a tinted dark shade. Use it as your dashboard background. Use the light shade as the section background on the marketing site. Primary stays primary on both — most decent primaries clear contrast on both light and dark surfaces.
Skip Figma. The export panel emits CSS variables, Tailwind config, SCSS, and Figma tokens. For a side project, just paste the Tailwind config into your tailwind.config.ts and reference bg-primary, text-accent, etc. directly in JSX. You can graduate to a token system later when the project earns it.
The whole point: stop debating colors. Pick a mood, randomize three times, lock, ship. The primary you accidentally generate at minute three is usually 80% as good as the one you would labor over for a week, and you ship six days earlier.