layout: docs
title: Background
description: Convey meaning through background-color and add decoration with gradients.
group: utilities
Similar to the contextual text color classes, set the background of an element to any contextual class. Background utilities do not set color, so in some cases you'll want to use .text-* color utilities.
{{< example >}} {{< colors.inline >}} {{- range (index $.Site.Data "theme-colors") }}
By adding a .bg-gradient class, a linear gradient is added as background image to the backgrounds. This gradient starts with a semi-transparent white which fades out to the bottom.
Do you need a gradient in your custom CSS? Just add background-image: var(--bs-gradient);.
{{< markdown >}} {{< colors.inline >}} {{- range (index $.Site.Data "theme-colors") }}
In addition to the following Sass functionality, consider reading about our included CSS custom properties (aka CSS variables) for colors and more.
Most background-color utilities are generated by our theme colors, reassigned from our generic color palette variables.
{{< scss-docs name="color-variables" file="scss/_variables.scss" >}}
{{< scss-docs name="theme-color-variables" file="scss/_variables.scss" >}}
{{< scss-docs name="variable-gradient" file="scss/_variables.scss" >}}
Grayscale colors are also available, but only a subset are used to generate any utilities.
{{< scss-docs name="gray-color-variables" file="scss/_variables.scss" >}}
Theme colors are then put into a Sass map so we can loop over them to generate our utilities, component modifiers, and more.
{{< scss-docs name="theme-colors-map" file="scss/_variables.scss" >}}
Grayscale colors are also available as a Sass map. This map is not used to generate any utilities.
{{< scss-docs name="gray-colors-map" file="scss/_variables.scss" >}}
No mixins are used to generate our background utilities, but we do have some additional mixins for other situations where you'd like to create your own gradients.
{{< scss-docs name="gradient-bg-mixin" file="scss/mixins/_gradients.scss" >}}
{{< scss-docs name="gradient-mixins" file="scss/mixins/_gradients.scss" >}}
Background utilities are declared in our utilities API in scss/_utilities.scss. Learn how to use the utilities API.
{{< scss-docs name="utils-bg-color" file="scss/_utilities.scss" >}}