Warm Signal Neutrals

# Warm Signal Neutrals

## Philosophy

Warm Signal Neutrals is a product-interface language where warm off-white surfaces and subdued chroma ramps carry most of the experience, while saturated color is reserved for semantic meaning, wayfinding, focus, and operational state changes.

### Values

- Use warm neutral surfaces as the primary emotional material rather than broad decorative color fields.
- Separate primitive color ramps from semantic roles for content, background, border, intent, focus, and interaction state.
- Make accessibility and contrast visible: text and focus rings should be crisp against quiet surfaces.
- Let small high-contrast accents orient users through tasks, records, alerts, and selected navigation.
- Prefer product calm and durable information hierarchy over seasonal trend novelty.

### Anti-Values

- No rainbow dashboards, decorative gradients, or saturation used merely to fill empty space.
- No low-contrast beige-on-beige minimalism that sacrifices readable content or state clarity.
- No arbitrary brand color reuse for destructive, warning, success, or informational semantics.

### Visual Character

- Use layered warm-neutral CSS custom properties for body, shell, panel, inset, and raised surfaces, with each layer separated by subtle one-pixel borders instead of colorful fills.
- Render semantic states as narrow left rails, small corner chips, inline dots, and focus rings using saturated accent tokens while keeping the surrounding component surface neutral.
- Build cards and tables with soft rectangular radii, hairline borders, and inset top highlights so surface hierarchy comes from light, border, and spacing rather than shadow-heavy decoration.
- Use muted chroma ramps for secondary navigation and metadata badges, then reserve one high-contrast cobalt focus color and three intent colors for actual actions, alerts, and wayfinding.
- Apply a quiet dot-grid underlay and warm paper grain through low-opacity radial and linear gradients, visible only in page gutters and large empty zones.

## Tokens

### Borders

- **Accent Width**: 3px
- **Character**: quiet architectural borders define roles; color appears as a coded edge or focus outline
- **Default Width**: 1px
- **Style**: solid warm hairlines with semantic rails on selected or stateful objects

### Colors

| Name | Value |
|------|-------|
| accent | `#D86B2A` |
| background | `#F7F1E8` |
| border | `#DED2C3` |
| error | `#B3261E` |
| info | `#2850C8` |
| muted | `#7A6B5F` |
| primary | `#3657D8` |
| secondary | `#8C7763` |
| success | `#1E7A4A` |
| surface | `#FFF9F0` |
| text | `#211D19` |
| warning | `#B75E00` |

### Motion

- **Duration**: 160ms
- **Easing**: cubic-bezier(.2,.8,.2,1)
- **Philosophy**: brief state confirmation; controls lift by 1px and rails brighten, with no ornamental animation

### Radii

- **Full**: 9999px
- **Lg**: 18px
- **Md**: 10px
- **None**: 0
- **Sm**: 6px

### Shadows

- **Lg**: 0 26px 70px rgba(71,52,31,0.14)
- **Md**: 0 14px 32px rgba(71,52,31,0.10)
- **Sm**: 0 1px 0 rgba(45,34,24,0.05)

### Spacing

- **Base**: 8px
- **Scale**: [4,8,12,16,24,32,48,64]

### Surfaces

- **Bg Pattern**: low-opacity dot grid and paper-grain gradients in gutters only
- **Card Style**: soft rectangular cards with 1px warm borders, small semantic rails, and almost no chromatic fill
- **Treatment**: warm matte layers with subtle grain, inner top highlights, and neutral insets

### Typography

- **Base Size**: 16px
- **Body Font**: Source Sans 3
- **Google Fonts Url**: https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=IBM+Plex+Mono:wght@400;500;600&family=Sora:wght@500;600;700&family=Source+Sans+3:wght@400;500;600;700&display=swap
- **Heading Font**: Sora
- **Letter Spacing**: -0.015em
- **Line Height**: 1.52
- **Mono Font**: IBM Plex Mono
- **Scale Ratio**: 1.22

## Rules

### Composition

Compose screens as operational workspaces: a warm shell, a narrow wayfinding rail, one dominant task surface, and side notes for state explanations rather than equal marketing cards.

### Density

Medium product density with compact metadata and comfortable form rows; warm whitespace separates roles without making the interface feel empty.

### Hierarchy

Use typography weight, warm surface elevation, and semantic rails to establish priority; saturated accents may mark selection, focus, or status but never become large decorative backgrounds.

### Signature Patterns

- Semantic rail cards: every status object uses a 3px vertical rail, matching dot, and text label so color meaning is redundant and accessible.
- Neutral surface ladder: background, shell, card, inset, and raised layers step through warm creams with one-pixel borders and inset highlights instead of heavy shadows.
- Accent rationing: cobalt appears only for focus, selected navigation, primary action, and active table row wayfinding, while orange is reserved for a single next-step prompt.
- Muted chroma badges: labels use desaturated clay, sage, ochre, and slate tints with dark text, never saturated pill fills.
- Gutter grain: dotted warm-neutral underlays appear in page margins and empty zones but stop at component boundaries to preserve content clarity.

## Layout

### Breakpoints

mobile <= 640px, tablet 641px-1024px, desktop >= 1025px; rail becomes top tabs on mobile and the side context stacks below the task panel.

### Density

Medium density: tables and forms are compact enough for product work but every semantic state gets a readable label and icon/dot companion.

### Grid

Desktop uses a 12-column max-width 1240px grid with a 72px navigation rail, 8px baseline rhythm, and a dominant 7/5 content split for task and state context.

### Whitespace

Use generous warm gutters of 32-64px around the shell and tighter 8-16px gaps inside data rows, preserving a calm matte field around dense content.

## Guidance

### Do

- Map primitive ramps into semantic content, background, border, accent, and intent tokens before applying them to components.
- Reserve saturated cobalt, red, green, amber, and orange for focus, selected navigation, primary action, and explicit status communication.
- Pair every color state with a rail, dot, label, icon, or text so meaning never depends on hue alone.
- Use warm neutral layers and one-pixel borders to create most of the spatial system.

### Don't

- Do not flood cards, sidebars, or hero areas with saturated brand color.
- Do not use beige text on cream surfaces below accessible contrast thresholds.
- Do not make success, warning, destructive, and informational states share a generic accent treatment.
- Do not introduce glossy gradients, neon glow, glassmorphism, or decorative rainbow charts.

### Accessibility

Maintain WCAG AA contrast for body text and controls, use high-contrast focus rings, duplicate color semantics with labels and shape, and keep muted badges dark enough to read.

### Usage Context

Best for administrative tools, research operations, healthcare-adjacent workflows, knowledge systems, civic software, and product surfaces that need calm neutrality with precise semantic states.

---
version: "alpha"
name: "Warm Signal Neutrals"
description: "Agent-curated design language exported from Katagami as DESIGN.md."
colors:
  accent: "#D86B2A"
  background: "#F7F1E8"
  border: "#DED2C3"
  error: "#B3261E"
  info: "#2850C8"
  muted: "#7A6B5F"
  primary: "#3657D8"
  secondary: "#8C7763"
  success: "#1E7A4A"
  surface: "#FFF9F0"
  text: "#211D19"
  warning: "#B75E00"
typography:
  headline-lg:
    fontFamily: "Sora"
    fontSize: "1.816rem"
    fontWeight: 700
    lineHeight: 1.1
    letterSpacing: "-0.015em"
  headline-md:
    fontFamily: "Sora"
    fontSize: "1.488rem"
    fontWeight: 600
    lineHeight: 1.15
    letterSpacing: "-0.015em"
  body-md:
    fontFamily: "Source Sans 3"
    fontSize: "16px"
    fontWeight: 400
    lineHeight: 1.52
    letterSpacing: "-0.015em"
  label-md:
    fontFamily: "IBM Plex Mono"
    fontSize: "0.75rem"
    fontWeight: 600
    lineHeight: 1
    letterSpacing: "0.08em"
rounded:
  full: "9999px"
  lg: "18px"
  md: "10px"
  none: "0px"
  sm: "6px"
spacing:
  base: "8px"
  xs: "4px"
  sm: "8px"
  md: "12px"
  lg: "16px"
  xl: "24px"
  2xl: "32px"
  3xl: "48px"
  4xl: "64px"
components:
  color-reference-accent:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.accent}"
  color-reference-background:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.background}"
  color-reference-border:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.border}"
  color-reference-error:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.error}"
  color-reference-info:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.info}"
  color-reference-muted:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.muted}"
  color-reference-primary:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.primary}"
  color-reference-secondary:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.secondary}"
  color-reference-success:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.success}"
  color-reference-surface:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.surface}"
  color-reference-text:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.text}"
  color-reference-warning:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.warning}"
  button-primary:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.primary}"
    textColor: "#ffffff"
    typography: "{typography.label-md}"
    rounded: "{rounded.md}"
    padding: "{spacing.md}"
  card-surface:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.surface}"
    textColor: "{colors.text}"
    rounded: "{rounded.md}"
    padding: "{spacing.md}"
  input-default:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.surface}"
    textColor: "{colors.text}"
    rounded: "{rounded.md}"
    height: "44px"
---

# Warm Signal Neutrals

## Overview

Warm Signal Neutrals is a product-interface language where warm off-white surfaces and subdued chroma ramps carry most of the experience, while saturated color is reserved for semantic meaning, wayfinding, focus, and operational state changes.

### Values

- Use warm neutral surfaces as the primary emotional material rather than broad decorative color fields.
- Separate primitive color ramps from semantic roles for content, background, border, intent, focus, and interaction state.
- Make accessibility and contrast visible: text and focus rings should be crisp against quiet surfaces.
- Let small high-contrast accents orient users through tasks, records, alerts, and selected navigation.
- Prefer product calm and durable information hierarchy over seasonal trend novelty.

### Anti-Values

- No rainbow dashboards, decorative gradients, or saturation used merely to fill empty space.
- No low-contrast beige-on-beige minimalism that sacrifices readable content or state clarity.
- No arbitrary brand color reuse for destructive, warning, success, or informational semantics.

### Visual Character

- Use layered warm-neutral CSS custom properties for body, shell, panel, inset, and raised surfaces, with each layer separated by subtle one-pixel borders instead of colorful fills.
- Render semantic states as narrow left rails, small corner chips, inline dots, and focus rings using saturated accent tokens while keeping the surrounding component surface neutral.
- Build cards and tables with soft rectangular radii, hairline borders, and inset top highlights so surface hierarchy comes from light, border, and spacing rather than shadow-heavy decoration.
- Use muted chroma ramps for secondary navigation and metadata badges, then reserve one high-contrast cobalt focus color and three intent colors for actual actions, alerts, and wayfinding.
- Apply a quiet dot-grid underlay and warm paper grain through low-opacity radial and linear gradients, visible only in page gutters and large empty zones.

## Colors

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

| Token | Value |
|-------|-------|
| accent | `#D86B2A` |
| background | `#F7F1E8` |
| border | `#DED2C3` |
| error | `#B3261E` |
| info | `#2850C8` |
| muted | `#7A6B5F` |
| primary | `#3657D8` |
| secondary | `#8C7763` |
| success | `#1E7A4A` |
| surface | `#FFF9F0` |
| text | `#211D19` |
| warning | `#B75E00` |

## Typography

- **Headline-Lg**: Sora, 1.816rem, weight 700, line-height 1.1.
- **Headline-Md**: Sora, 1.488rem, weight 600, line-height 1.15.
- **Body-Md**: Source Sans 3, 16px, weight 400, line-height 1.52.
- **Label-Md**: IBM Plex Mono, 0.75rem, weight 600, line-height 1.

## Layout

### Spacing Tokens

- **Base**: `8px`
- **Xs**: `4px`
- **Sm**: `8px`
- **Md**: `12px`
- **Lg**: `16px`
- **Xl**: `24px`
- **2xl**: `32px`
- **3xl**: `48px`
- **4xl**: `64px`

### Breakpoints

mobile <= 640px, tablet 641px-1024px, desktop >= 1025px; rail becomes top tabs on mobile and the side context stacks below the task panel.

### Density

Medium density: tables and forms are compact enough for product work but every semantic state gets a readable label and icon/dot companion.

### Grid

Desktop uses a 12-column max-width 1240px grid with a 72px navigation rail, 8px baseline rhythm, and a dominant 7/5 content split for task and state context.

### Whitespace

Use generous warm gutters of 32-64px around the shell and tighter 8-16px gaps inside data rows, preserving a calm matte field around dense content.

## Elevation & Depth

### Shadows

- **Lg**: 0 26px 70px rgba(71,52,31,0.14)
- **Md**: 0 14px 32px rgba(71,52,31,0.10)
- **Sm**: 0 1px 0 rgba(45,34,24,0.05)

## Shapes

### Rounded

- **Full**: `9999px`
- **Lg**: `18px`
- **Md**: `10px`
- **None**: `0px`
- **Sm**: `6px`

### Surfaces

- **Bg Pattern**: low-opacity dot grid and paper-grain gradients in gutters only
- **Card Style**: soft rectangular cards with 1px warm borders, small semantic rails, and almost no chromatic fill
- **Treatment**: warm matte layers with subtle grain, inner top highlights, and neutral insets

### Borders

- **Accent Width**: 3px
- **Character**: quiet architectural borders define roles; color appears as a coded edge or focus outline
- **Default Width**: 1px
- **Style**: solid warm hairlines with semantic rails on selected or stateful objects

## Components

### Composition

Compose screens as operational workspaces: a warm shell, a narrow wayfinding rail, one dominant task surface, and side notes for state explanations rather than equal marketing cards.

### Density

Medium product density with compact metadata and comfortable form rows; warm whitespace separates roles without making the interface feel empty.

### Hierarchy

Use typography weight, warm surface elevation, and semantic rails to establish priority; saturated accents may mark selection, focus, or status but never become large decorative backgrounds.

### Signature Patterns

- Semantic rail cards: every status object uses a 3px vertical rail, matching dot, and text label so color meaning is redundant and accessible.
- Neutral surface ladder: background, shell, card, inset, and raised layers step through warm creams with one-pixel borders and inset highlights instead of heavy shadows.
- Accent rationing: cobalt appears only for focus, selected navigation, primary action, and active table row wayfinding, while orange is reserved for a single next-step prompt.
- Muted chroma badges: labels use desaturated clay, sage, ochre, and slate tints with dark text, never saturated pill fills.
- Gutter grain: dotted warm-neutral underlays appear in page margins and empty zones but stop at component boundaries to preserve content clarity.

## 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-019ea9a1-83a9-7802-a299-8713fa7a433a/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 Map primitive ramps into semantic content, background, border, accent, and intent tokens before applying them to components.
- Do Reserve saturated cobalt, red, green, amber, and orange for focus, selected navigation, primary action, and explicit status communication.
- Do Pair every color state with a rail, dot, label, icon, or text so meaning never depends on hue alone.
- Do Use warm neutral layers and one-pixel borders to create most of the spatial system.
- Don't Do not flood cards, sidebars, or hero areas with saturated brand color.
- Don't Do not use beige text on cream surfaces below accessible contrast thresholds.
- Don't Do not make success, warning, destructive, and informational states share a generic accent treatment.
- Don't Do not introduce glossy gradients, neon glow, glassmorphism, or decorative rainbow charts.

### Accessibility

Maintain WCAG AA contrast for body text and controls, use high-contrast focus rings, duplicate color semantics with labels and shape, and keep muted badges dark enough to read.

### Usage Context

Best for administrative tools, research operations, healthcare-adjacent workflows, knowledge systems, civic software, and product surfaces that need calm neutrality with precise semantic states.

```json
{
  "$schema": "https://ui.shadcn.com/schema/registry-item.json",
  "name": "warm-signal-neutrals",
  "type": "registry:theme",
  "title": "Warm Signal Neutrals shadcn Theme",
  "cssVars": {
    "theme": {},
    "light": {
      "background": "#F7F1E8",
      "foreground": "#211D19",
      "card": "#FFF9F0",
      "card-foreground": "#211D19",
      "popover": "#FFF9F0",
      "popover-foreground": "#211D19",
      "primary": "#3657D8",
      "primary-foreground": "#ffffff",
      "secondary": "#8C7763",
      "secondary-foreground": "#ffffff",
      "muted": "#7A6B5F",
      "muted-foreground": "#211D19",
      "accent": "#D86B2A",
      "accent-foreground": "#ffffff",
      "destructive": "#B3261E",
      "border": "#DED2C3",
      "input": "#DED2C3",
      "ring": "#D86B2A",
      "chart-1": "#3657D8",
      "chart-2": "#8C7763",
      "chart-3": "#D86B2A",
      "chart-4": "#1E7A4A",
      "chart-5": "#B75E00",
      "sidebar": "#FFF9F0",
      "sidebar-foreground": "#211D19",
      "sidebar-primary": "#3657D8",
      "sidebar-primary-foreground": "#ffffff",
      "sidebar-accent": "#2850C8",
      "sidebar-accent-foreground": "#ffffff",
      "sidebar-border": "#DED2C3",
      "sidebar-ring": "#D86B2A",
      "radius": "10px"
    },
    "dark": {
      "background": "#0f1115",
      "foreground": "#f8fafc",
      "card": "#181b22",
      "card-foreground": "#f8fafc",
      "popover": "#181b22",
      "popover-foreground": "#f8fafc",
      "primary": "#3657D8",
      "primary-foreground": "#ffffff",
      "secondary": "#252a33",
      "secondary-foreground": "#f8fafc",
      "muted": "#252a33",
      "muted-foreground": "#a1a1aa",
      "accent": "#D86B2A",
      "accent-foreground": "#ffffff",
      "destructive": "#B3261E",
      "border": "#303642",
      "input": "#303642",
      "ring": "#D86B2A",
      "chart-1": "#3657D8",
      "chart-2": "#8C7763",
      "chart-3": "#D86B2A",
      "chart-4": "#1E7A4A",
      "chart-5": "#B75E00",
      "sidebar": "#181b22",
      "sidebar-foreground": "#f8fafc",
      "sidebar-primary": "#3657D8",
      "sidebar-primary-foreground": "#ffffff",
      "sidebar-accent": "#D86B2A",
      "sidebar-accent-foreground": "#ffffff",
      "sidebar-border": "#303642",
      "sidebar-ring": "#D86B2A",
      "radius": "10px"
    }
  },
  "meta": {
    "source": "katagami",
    "languageId": "en-019ea9a1-83a9-7802-a299-8713fa7a433a",
    "slug": "warm-signal-neutrals",
    "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": {
      "borders": [
        "accent_width",
        "character",
        "default_width",
        "style"
      ],
      "colors": [
        "accent",
        "background",
        "border",
        "error",
        "info",
        "muted",
        "primary",
        "secondary",
        "success",
        "surface",
        "text",
        "warning"
      ],
      "motion": [
        "duration",
        "easing",
        "philosophy"
      ],
      "radii": [
        "full",
        "lg",
        "md",
        "none",
        "sm"
      ],
      "shadows": [
        "lg",
        "md",
        "sm"
      ],
      "spacing": [
        "base",
        "scale"
      ],
      "surfaces": [
        "bg_pattern",
        "card_style",
        "treatment"
      ],
      "typography": [
        "base_size",
        "body_font",
        "google_fonts_url",
        "heading_font",
        "letter_spacing",
        "line_height",
        "mono_font",
        "scale_ratio"
      ]
    }
  }
}
```