Litmus

# Litmus

## Philosophy

Colour is a reading rather than a garnish. Every stateful surface in Litmus is a paper strip with a dye field and a hairline seam at the point the measurement stopped, and the number is printed on that seam so a value is never separated from the position it came from.

### Values

- semantic colour
- measured honesty
- square geometry
- instrument legibility
- editorial restraint

### Anti-Values

- decorative hue
- rounded softness
- glow and gradient
- ambient particle weather
- status by hue alone

### Visual Character

- graphite ink ground with square bone-paper strips and hard zero-blur black offsets
- a 2px ruler-straight seam on every stateful control with the reading set on it in mono
- dye fills occupy whole regions of a control and never outline one
- IBM Plex Mono for anything an instrument measured; Archivo at 17px regular for prose
- border-radius 0 on every element in every artifact

### Lineage

> A reimagining of Chromatic Decision Lab: the same conviction that colour must carry meaning, moved from a calm white workbench onto an ink bench where the hue arrives as a dye front and stops at a seam.

## Tokens

### Colors

| Name | Value |
|------|-------|
| bg | `#0F1014` |
| surface | `#17181D` |
| surface_solid | `#F1EEE5` |
| text | `#EFECE3` |
| muted | `#8C8E97` |
| border | `#26282F` |
| accent | `#E51F4B` |
| accent_2 | `#2A47B8` |
| accent_soft | `#C7E01B` |
| on_accent | `#F5F2E9` |
| success | `#C7E01B` |
| warning | `#E8A317` |
| error | `#E51F4B` |
| info | `#2A47B8` |

### Typography

- **Base Size**: 17px
- **Body Font**: Archivo
- **Heading Font**: Archivo
- **Mono Font**: IBM Plex Mono
- **Heading Weight**: 700
- **Heading Transform**: none
- **Letter Spacing**: -0.02em
- **Line Height**: 1.55
- **Scale Ratio**: 1.28
- **Google Fonts Url**: https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Archivo:wght@400;500;600;700&family=IBM+Plex+Mono:wght@400;500&display=swap

### Radii

- **None**: 0px
- **Md**: 0px
- **Lg**: 0px
- **Full**: 0px

### Shadows

- **Sm**: 4px 4px 0 0 #000000
- **Md**: 6px 6px 0 0 #000000
- **Lg**: 10px 10px 0 0 #000000

### Spacing

- **Base**: 8px
- **Scale**: 8, 16, 24, 32, 48, 62, 96

### Surfaces

- **Treatment**: Graphite ink ground with matte bone-paper strips laid on it; dye fills whole regions of a control and never outlines one.
- **Card Style**: Square panel with a titration band across the head, a hairline seam at the reading, and one hard zero-blur black offset. No outline, no edge rail, no nesting.
- **Bg Pattern**: A 14px rule cadence borrowed from the burette scale, printed at low contrast on ink and only where no copy sits.

### Borders

- **Default Width**: 1px
- **Accent Width**: 2px
- **Style**: solid
- **Character**: Hairline seams only. A 1px rule separates table rows; a 2px seam marks a reading. Never an outline around a card and never a narrow strip hugging a card edge.

### Motion

- **Duration**: 620ms
- **Easing**: cubic-bezier(0.22,0.61,0.28,1)
- **Philosophy**: Nothing fades in for its own sake. A value travels, a front advances, a seam lands. One ease vocabulary across the whole set; beats scale 1x / 1.6x / 2.6x.

## Rules

### Composition

One full-bleed plate layer under a 1280px contained measure (1480px above 1800px). Copy sits on quiet ground; full-strength imagery belongs to bands, plates and transitions. Every scroll depth is a composed poster with consistent gutters.

### Hierarchy

Two display moments in the whole set — the landing wordmark and the endpoint reading. Everything else compresses toward 17px body, with mono furniture at 12px carrying instrument context.

### Density

Catalogue-exact. Aligned strip rows, seam-marked cells and mono readings pack tightly, held apart by 8px-based spacing with at least 12px above every title.

### Signature Patterns

- The turn seam: a paper field, a dye front, a 2px hairline where it stopped, and the reading printed on the hairline.
- Titration band: a 10px strip across a card's head carrying that card's own reading.
- The rail: many strips side by side sorted by turn point, so the shape of a batch reads before any number.
- Threshold wash: a selected or confirmed row takes a chartreuse wash across its whole surface, never an edge mark.
- Upright strip: avatars, gauges and column charts are the same primitive rotated.

## Layout

### Grid

12-column ink page with a 1280px contained measure (1480px above 1800px) and one full-bleed plate layer. The console runs a 1.55fr canvas beside a 1fr queue column, collapsing to one column under 1180px; the landing is a six-scene pinned film on the same measure.

### Breakpoints

mobile 390px, tablet 768-1024px, desktop 1440px, wide 1920px+ — each art-directed on its own terms.

### Whitespace

8px base; 24px panel padding, 32px block gaps, 62px section rhythm, 12px minimum above every title.

## Guidance

### Do

- Give every hue one meaning and repeat it across actions, states, rows, cells, charts and steps.
- Print the reading on the seam so the number and its position stay together.
- Use the ink or lit variant of an accent whenever that accent has to be read as type.
- Keep the ground quiet under every line of copy.
- Write in the bench's real vocabulary: run identifiers, reagent lots, tolerances, analysts, times.

### Don't

- Don't put a coloured stripe, rail or ribbon along the edge of a card, in any artifact.
- Don't round anything; a rounded corner anywhere breaks the geometry.
- Don't let a bright accent carry small text over imagery or paper.
- Don't add glow shadows, decorative gradients or ambient particle fields.
- Don't inflate the mid-scale; body is 17px and subheads sit close to it.

## Imagery Direction

### Pairs With

dyefront

### Subjects

Bench apparatus, wet paper, and the moment a dye front crosses something — but the style itself is subject-agnostic and dresses a face, a city or a teapot the same way.

### Composition

Reserve a quiet black region for type in every plate; place the dye front off-centre so the hard edge does the composing.

### Palette

Graphite black, bone paper, acid crimson, base indigo, endpoint chartreuse — nothing else.

### Treatment

Flat frontal studio light, hard-edged colour separation, visible paper fibre in the soaked region, 4x5 sheet-film grain, no gradients in the ground.

### Avoid

Gradients, glow, bokeh, rainbow spreads, pastel washes, branded objects, any lettering.

---
version: "alpha"
name: "Litmus"
description: "Agent-curated design language exported from Katagami as DESIGN.md."
colors:
  bg: "#0F1014"
  surface: "#17181D"
  surface_solid: "#F1EEE5"
  text: "#EFECE3"
  muted: "#8C8E97"
  border: "#26282F"
  accent: "#E51F4B"
  accent_2: "#2A47B8"
  accent_soft: "#C7E01B"
  on_accent: "#F5F2E9"
  success: "#C7E01B"
  warning: "#E8A317"
  error: "#E51F4B"
  info: "#2A47B8"
typography:
  headline-lg:
    fontFamily: "Archivo"
    fontSize: "2.075rem"
    fontWeight: 700
    lineHeight: 1.1
    letterSpacing: "-0.02em"
  headline-md:
    fontFamily: "Archivo"
    fontSize: "1.66rem"
    fontWeight: 600
    lineHeight: 1.15
    letterSpacing: "-0.02em"
  body-md:
    fontFamily: "Archivo"
    fontSize: "17px"
    fontWeight: 400
    lineHeight: 1.5
    letterSpacing: "-0.02em"
  label-md:
    fontFamily: "IBM Plex Mono"
    fontSize: "0.75rem"
    fontWeight: 600
    lineHeight: 1
    letterSpacing: "0.08em"
rounded:
  none: "0px"
  md: "0px"
  lg: "0px"
  full: "0px"
spacing:
  base: "8px"
components:
  color-reference-bg:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.bg}"
  color-reference-surface:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.surface}"
  color-reference-surface_solid:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.surface_solid}"
  color-reference-text:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.text}"
  color-reference-muted:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.muted}"
  color-reference-border:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.border}"
  color-reference-accent:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.accent}"
  color-reference-accent_2:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.accent_2}"
  color-reference-accent_soft:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.accent_soft}"
  color-reference-on_accent:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.on_accent}"
  color-reference-success:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.success}"
  color-reference-warning:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.warning}"
  color-reference-error:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.error}"
  color-reference-info:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.info}"
  button-primary:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.accent}"
    textColor: "#000000"
    typography: "{typography.label-md}"
    rounded: "{rounded.md}"
    padding: "{spacing.base}"
  card-surface:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.surface}"
    textColor: "{colors.text}"
    rounded: "{rounded.md}"
    padding: "{spacing.base}"
  input-default:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.surface}"
    textColor: "{colors.text}"
    rounded: "{rounded.md}"
    height: "44px"
---

# Litmus

## Overview

Colour is a reading rather than a garnish. Every stateful surface in Litmus is a paper strip with a dye field and a hairline seam at the point the measurement stopped, and the number is printed on that seam so a value is never separated from the position it came from.

### Values

- semantic colour
- measured honesty
- square geometry
- instrument legibility
- editorial restraint

### Anti-Values

- decorative hue
- rounded softness
- glow and gradient
- ambient particle weather
- status by hue alone

### Visual Character

- graphite ink ground with square bone-paper strips and hard zero-blur black offsets
- a 2px ruler-straight seam on every stateful control with the reading set on it in mono
- dye fills occupy whole regions of a control and never outline one
- IBM Plex Mono for anything an instrument measured; Archivo at 17px regular for prose
- border-radius 0 on every element in every artifact

### Lineage

> A reimagining of Chromatic Decision Lab: the same conviction that colour must carry meaning, moved from a calm white workbench onto an ink bench where the hue arrives as a dye front and stops at a seam.

## Colors

Use the YAML color tokens as the normative palette. The prose below names the roles agents should preserve when generating UI.

| Token | Value |
|-------|-------|
| bg | `#0F1014` |
| surface | `#17181D` |
| surface_solid | `#F1EEE5` |
| text | `#EFECE3` |
| muted | `#8C8E97` |
| border | `#26282F` |
| accent | `#E51F4B` |
| accent_2 | `#2A47B8` |
| accent_soft | `#C7E01B` |
| on_accent | `#F5F2E9` |
| success | `#C7E01B` |
| warning | `#E8A317` |
| error | `#E51F4B` |
| info | `#2A47B8` |

## Typography

- **Headline-Lg**: Archivo, 2.075rem, weight 700, line-height 1.1.
- **Headline-Md**: Archivo, 1.66rem, weight 600, line-height 1.15.
- **Body-Md**: Archivo, 17px, weight 400, line-height 1.5.
- **Label-Md**: IBM Plex Mono, 0.75rem, weight 600, line-height 1.

## Layout

### Spacing Tokens

- **Base**: `8px`

### Grid

12-column ink page with a 1280px contained measure (1480px above 1800px) and one full-bleed plate layer. The console runs a 1.55fr canvas beside a 1fr queue column, collapsing to one column under 1180px; the landing is a six-scene pinned film on the same measure.

### Breakpoints

mobile 390px, tablet 768-1024px, desktop 1440px, wide 1920px+ — each art-directed on its own terms.

### Whitespace

8px base; 24px panel padding, 32px block gaps, 62px section rhythm, 12px minimum above every title.

## Elevation & Depth

### Shadows

- **Sm**: 4px 4px 0 0 #000000
- **Md**: 6px 6px 0 0 #000000
- **Lg**: 10px 10px 0 0 #000000

## Shapes

### Rounded

- **None**: `0px`
- **Md**: `0px`
- **Lg**: `0px`
- **Full**: `0px`

### Surfaces

- **Treatment**: Graphite ink ground with matte bone-paper strips laid on it; dye fills whole regions of a control and never outlines one.
- **Card Style**: Square panel with a titration band across the head, a hairline seam at the reading, and one hard zero-blur black offset. No outline, no edge rail, no nesting.
- **Bg Pattern**: A 14px rule cadence borrowed from the burette scale, printed at low contrast on ink and only where no copy sits.

### Borders

- **Default Width**: 1px
- **Accent Width**: 2px
- **Style**: solid
- **Character**: Hairline seams only. A 1px rule separates table rows; a 2px seam marks a reading. Never an outline around a card and never a narrow strip hugging a card edge.

## Components

### Composition

One full-bleed plate layer under a 1280px contained measure (1480px above 1800px). Copy sits on quiet ground; full-strength imagery belongs to bands, plates and transitions. Every scroll depth is a composed poster with consistent gutters.

### Hierarchy

Two display moments in the whole set — the landing wordmark and the endpoint reading. Everything else compresses toward 17px body, with mono furniture at 12px carrying instrument context.

### Density

Catalogue-exact. Aligned strip rows, seam-marked cells and mono readings pack tightly, held apart by 8px-based spacing with at least 12px above every title.

### Signature Patterns

- The turn seam: a paper field, a dye front, a 2px hairline where it stopped, and the reading printed on the hairline.
- Titration band: a 10px strip across a card's head carrying that card's own reading.
- The rail: many strips side by side sorted by turn point, so the shape of a batch reads before any number.
- Threshold wash: a selected or confirmed row takes a chartreuse wash across its whole surface, never an edge mark.
- Upright strip: avatars, gauges and column charts are the same primitive rotated.

## shadcn/ui Usage

When the target app uses shadcn/ui, copy DESIGN.md with shadcn instead of the plain DESIGN.md. It contains the same Katagami design-language source plus the shadcn/ui primitives, imports, theme variables, component recipes, and preview-shot guidance.

DESIGN.md with shadcn: `/language/en-019ffc43-e769-78a2-8e7e-3d48d41e968b/DESIGN.with-shadcn.md`.

The shadcn page also exposes optional machine-readable files for automation, but the human-facing handoff is DESIGN.md with shadcn.

Install recommended primitives with `npx shadcn@latest add button card input textarea select dialog sheet tabs badge separator checkbox switch slider tooltip dropdown-menu table`.

Use these primitives in shadcn apps:
- button
- card
- input
- textarea
- select
- dialog
- sheet
- tabs
- badge
- separator
- checkbox
- switch
- slider
- tooltip
- dropdown-menu
- table

Implementation rule for agents: import shadcn primitives from `@/components/ui/*`, apply the generated CSS variables first, then compose the language-specific recipes from the companion MD. Katagami remains the source of truth; shadcn names are the implementation surface.

## Do's and Don'ts

- Do Give every hue one meaning and repeat it across actions, states, rows, cells, charts and steps.
- Do Print the reading on the seam so the number and its position stay together.
- Do Use the ink or lit variant of an accent whenever that accent has to be read as type.
- Do Keep the ground quiet under every line of copy.
- Do Write in the bench's real vocabulary: run identifiers, reagent lots, tolerances, analysts, times.
- Don't Don't put a coloured stripe, rail or ribbon along the edge of a card, in any artifact.
- Don't Don't round anything; a rounded corner anywhere breaks the geometry.
- Don't Don't let a bright accent carry small text over imagery or paper.
- Don't Don't add glow shadows, decorative gradients or ambient particle fields.
- Don't Don't inflate the mid-scale; body is 17px and subheads sit close to it.

## Imagery Direction

### Pairs With

dyefront

### Subjects

Bench apparatus, wet paper, and the moment a dye front crosses something — but the style itself is subject-agnostic and dresses a face, a city or a teapot the same way.

### Composition

Reserve a quiet black region for type in every plate; place the dye front off-centre so the hard edge does the composing.

### Palette

Graphite black, bone paper, acid crimson, base indigo, endpoint chartreuse — nothing else.

### Treatment

Flat frontal studio light, hard-edged colour separation, visible paper fibre in the soaked region, 4x5 sheet-film grain, no gradients in the ground.

### Avoid

Gradients, glow, bokeh, rainbow spreads, pastel washes, branded objects, any lettering.

```json
{
  "$schema": "https://ui.shadcn.com/schema/registry-item.json",
  "name": "litmus",
  "type": "registry:theme",
  "title": "Litmus shadcn Theme",
  "cssVars": {
    "theme": {},
    "light": {
      "background": "#0F1014",
      "foreground": "#EFECE3",
      "card": "#17181D",
      "card-foreground": "#EFECE3",
      "popover": "#17181D",
      "popover-foreground": "#EFECE3",
      "primary": "#EFECE3",
      "primary-foreground": "#111111",
      "secondary": "#f4f4f5",
      "secondary-foreground": "#111111",
      "muted": "#8C8E97",
      "muted-foreground": "#EFECE3",
      "accent": "#E51F4B",
      "accent-foreground": "#ffffff",
      "destructive": "#E51F4B",
      "border": "#26282F",
      "input": "#26282F",
      "ring": "#E51F4B",
      "chart-1": "#EFECE3",
      "chart-2": "#f4f4f5",
      "chart-3": "#E51F4B",
      "chart-4": "#C7E01B",
      "chart-5": "#E8A317",
      "sidebar": "#17181D",
      "sidebar-foreground": "#EFECE3",
      "sidebar-primary": "#EFECE3",
      "sidebar-primary-foreground": "#111111",
      "sidebar-accent": "#2A47B8",
      "sidebar-accent-foreground": "#ffffff",
      "sidebar-border": "#26282F",
      "sidebar-ring": "#E51F4B",
      "radius": "0px"
    },
    "dark": {
      "background": "#0f1115",
      "foreground": "#f8fafc",
      "card": "#181b22",
      "card-foreground": "#f8fafc",
      "popover": "#181b22",
      "popover-foreground": "#f8fafc",
      "primary": "#EFECE3",
      "primary-foreground": "#111111",
      "secondary": "#252a33",
      "secondary-foreground": "#f8fafc",
      "muted": "#252a33",
      "muted-foreground": "#a1a1aa",
      "accent": "#E51F4B",
      "accent-foreground": "#ffffff",
      "destructive": "#E51F4B",
      "border": "#303642",
      "input": "#303642",
      "ring": "#E51F4B",
      "chart-1": "#EFECE3",
      "chart-2": "#f4f4f5",
      "chart-3": "#E51F4B",
      "chart-4": "#C7E01B",
      "chart-5": "#E8A317",
      "sidebar": "#181b22",
      "sidebar-foreground": "#f8fafc",
      "sidebar-primary": "#EFECE3",
      "sidebar-primary-foreground": "#111111",
      "sidebar-accent": "#E51F4B",
      "sidebar-accent-foreground": "#ffffff",
      "sidebar-border": "#303642",
      "sidebar-ring": "#E51F4B",
      "radius": "0px"
    }
  },
  "meta": {
    "source": "katagami",
    "languageId": "en-019ffc43-e769-78a2-8e7e-3d48d41e968b",
    "slug": "litmus",
    "componentManifest": [
      "button",
      "card",
      "input",
      "textarea",
      "select",
      "dialog",
      "sheet",
      "tabs",
      "badge",
      "separator",
      "checkbox",
      "switch",
      "slider",
      "tooltip",
      "dropdown-menu",
      "table"
    ],
    "installCommand": "npx shadcn@latest add button card input textarea select dialog sheet tabs badge separator checkbox switch slider tooltip dropdown-menu table",
    "nativeTokenNames": {
      "colors": [
        "accent",
        "accent_2",
        "accent_soft",
        "bg",
        "border",
        "error",
        "info",
        "muted",
        "on_accent",
        "success",
        "surface",
        "surface_solid",
        "text",
        "warning"
      ],
      "typography": [
        "base_size",
        "body_font",
        "google_fonts_url",
        "heading_font",
        "heading_transform",
        "heading_weight",
        "letter_spacing",
        "line_height",
        "mono_font",
        "scale_ratio"
      ],
      "radii": [
        "full",
        "lg",
        "md",
        "none"
      ],
      "shadows": [
        "lg",
        "md",
        "sm"
      ],
      "spacing": [
        "base",
        "scale"
      ],
      "surfaces": [
        "bg_pattern",
        "card_style",
        "treatment"
      ],
      "borders": [
        "accent_width",
        "character",
        "default_width",
        "style"
      ],
      "motion": [
        "duration",
        "easing",
        "philosophy"
      ]
    }
  }
}
```