Transition a CSS background-color to a gradient

Question

I have some tiles that have an ordinary background-color and show a CSS gradient on hover, and I want to add a transition between these. I've seen this solution, but as far as I can tell the only way to make it work for background colours is to treat it as a gradient by adding two duplicate initial colours and transitioning those:

@property --myColor1 {
  syntax: '<color>';
  initial-value: #e6e6e6;
  inherits: false;
}

@property --myColor2 {
  syntax: '<color>';
  initial-value: #e6e6e6;
  inherits: false;
}

This seems redundant and it feels like there should be a cleaner way to do this. Is there?

Temani Afif · Accepted Answer · 2025-04-13 20:28:13Z

2

You can fade the opacity of the upper layer which is a one-color gradient:

@property --o {
  syntax: '<number>';
  initial-value: 1;
  inherits: false;
}

.box {
  --c: purple; /* the color */
  
  background:
   conic-gradient(rgb(from var(--c) r g b/var(--o)) 0 0),
   linear-gradient(red,blue); /* the gradient */
  transition: --o .5s;
  height: 200px;
}
.box:hover {
  --o: 0;
}

<div class="box"></div>

Another syntax:

@property --o {
  syntax: '<number>';
  initial-value: 1;
  inherits: false;
}

.box {
  --c: purple; /* the color */
  
  border-image: conic-gradient(rgb(from var(--c) r g b/var(--o)) 0 0) fill 0;
  background: linear-gradient(red,blue);
  transition: --o .5s;
  height: 200px;
}
.box:hover {
  --o: 0;
}

<div class="box"></div>

edited Apr 13 at 20:28

answered Apr 13 at 19:47

Temani Afif

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1 Comment

Hashim Aziz Apr 13 at 20:26

I had to move most properties to the hover state to make the first method work for me, but other than that this works beautifully, and without any extra markup. TIL about one-colour gradients. Thank you!

imhvost · Accepted Answer · 2025-04-13 19:45:35Z

1

Use pseudo element:

* {
  margin: 0;
}

.card {
  padding: 40px;
  background-color: #eee;
  position: relative;
  display: inline-flex;
  flex-direction: column;
  gap: 8px;
  text-align: center;
  &>* {
    position: relative;
    z-index: 1;
  }
  &:before{
    content: '';
    position: absolute;
    inset: 0;
    background: linear-gradient(40deg, rgba(226, 66, 249, 0.94) 40%, rgb(0, 153, 255) 80%);
    opacity: 0;
    transition: opacity .4s;
  }
  &:hover {
    &:before {
      opacity: 1;
    }
  }
}

<div class="card">
  <h3 class="card-title">Lorem ipsum.</h3>
  <div class="card-desc">Lorem ipsum.</div>
</div>

answered Apr 13 at 19:45

imhvost

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