A way to generate a color palette using base colors

_colors.scss

$colors: (
	primary: (
		base: #063b6d
	),
	accent: (
		base: #d40026
	),
	action: (
		base: #4c7659
	),
	selection: (
		base: #b22727
	)
);

//Combines two color maps (or really any nested map)
@function combine_colors($map1, $map2){
	@each $pal, $color in $map2{
		$value: ($pal: $color);
		$map1: map-merge($map1, $value);
	}
	@return $map1;
}

//Adds lighter, darker variations to color map
// 1. Gather variation names.
// 2. Define the lighten/darken percentages.
// 3. Get half the length of the varations for use later.
// 4. Loop through the pallets and colors of the map input.
// 5. Store the base color value that we'll add to throughout the next loop.
// 6. Loop through the variation names.
// 7. Grab the lighten/darken amount based on the loop iteration.
// 8. If the loop is over half done, switch from lighten to darken.
// 9. Create the variation and color definition in map format ("name": color).
//10. Merge the current base color map with the new variant map.
//11. Format the previous loops results into a nested map.
//12. Merge the input map with itself and the new nested map.
//13. Return the map with the new values.

@function generate_color_variations(
	$map,
	$tint:false,
	$variations: (light, lighter, lightest, dark, darker, darkest), //[1]
	$increments: (10%, 20%, 30%, 10%, 20%, 40%) 				    //[2]
){
	$switch-variation: length($variations) / 2; 				  //[3]
	$new-map: $map !global;

	@each $pal, $color in $map{ 				//[4]
		$values-list: $color !global;			//[5]

		@each $variant in $variations {         //[6]
			$i: index($variations, $variant);
			$amount: nth($increments, $i);		//[7]
			@if $tint == false{
				@if $i > $switch-variation { 									//[8]
					$new-color: darken(map-get($color, base), $amount) !global; //[8]
				}@else{
					$new-color: lighten(map-get($color, base), $amount) !global; //[8]
				}
			}@else{
				@if $i > $switch-variation { 									//[8]
					$new-color: shade(map-get($color, base), $amount) !global; //[8]
				}@else{
					$new-color: tint(map-get($color, base), $amount) !global; //[8]
				}
			}
			$value: ($variant: $new-color); 				  				//[9]
			// This is required because sass maps are formatted as
			// (first-level: ((second-level: value)) )
			$values-list: map-merge($value, $values-list) !global;			//[10]

		}

		$inner-map: ($pal:($values-list));						//[11]
		$new-map: combine_colors($new-map, $inner-map) !global;	//[12]

	}
	@return $new-map; 			//[13]
}

//Generate the variations.
$colors: generate_color_variations($colors);

//Get colors
@function color($color, $tone: 'base') {
    @return map-get(map-get($colors, $color), $tone);
};

example.scss

div {
	color: color(primary);
	background-color: color(primary, lightest);
}