Variables: Color alias with alpha / opacity (rgba ideally)

+1 this is really needed

This is absolutely necessary. The current Figma Variables system needs to be developed much further right now it only covers very basic needs. When building a comprehensive design system, you run into many limitations and are forced to rely on hacky workarounds.

Adding my voice to the mix too, this is an essential requirement to manage a color system properly. Variables could be so much more in Figma, it’s disappointing to see so little progress after such a long time.

Same here, waiting for this abilitie, it’s so common to handle opacity into  a design system colors…. just check how the web is evolving with hsl okclh and so on. Every single doc in frontend is build upon this ( tailwind, shadcn, radix, ...)

What’s the point of variables, tokenisation etc if we can’t rely properly this basic thing ?

This and not being able to have a colour gradient variable are very restricting us in the usage of variables right now. 

BUMP!!!

Sorely needed. It has been available in PenPot for ages. Figma is falling behind. BUMP!!!

I hit the exact same limitation and it drove me nuts.

Figma doesn’t let you override the alpha/opacity of an aliased color variable without detaching, so you lose the reference. I built Variables Plus to solve this class of problems by adding formulas on top of Figma Variables.

With Variables Plus you can keep Blue-950 as the single source of truth, then create derived variables like “Blue-950 @ 50%” (or drive the alpha from a separate opacity variable) while staying fully linked — when Blue-950 changes, all opacity variants update automatically.

Example: I reference Blue-950 and apply a 50% opacity formula. If Blue-950 changes later, the derived color updates too, while always keeping 50% opacity.
 

Plugin: https://www.figma.com/community/plugin/1607106236822235286/variables-plus

Demo file (duplicate-ready): https://www.figma.com/community/file/1607096708474658929/variables-plus-demo



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Please ​@Figma_Moderation  !!! Let us change the opacity without needing to Unlink the Master color! It’s so much extra work to maintain and make, when we can’t like  developers justm make destructive/50 , to get a 50% variant variable.

We need to disconnect it, and redo it all manually if the red changes.
We don’t need more slop AI side quests. 

 

​@y_toku Any updates on this after years?
It’s essentially a giant pain, that we can’t do like code /50 for opacity without disconnecting the color.