Dialtone

# Dialtone

## Philosophy

A quiet operating-system shrine for the private home network at night: powder-gray room light, one active console window lit by a soft CRT-white bloom, off-black manga-ink cables wiring it to an unseen house, and a single phosphor status spark. It makes loneliness operational — one thing awake, the rest of the room quiet — and earns its polish from restraint, low saturation, and precise linework rather than spectacle.

### Values

- Loneliness as structure: one clearly active window surrounded by charged negative space and faint peripheral evidence.
- Domestic technology over cyber spectacle: modem LEDs, carrier tones, blank dialogs, and bedroom-console proportions instead of weaponized neon.
- Powder-gray ambience: soft, tactile contrast where off-black linework and CRT-white glow carry the emotional weight.
- Network mysticism made technical: node maps and cable schematics read as both real infrastructure and private ritual diagrams.
- Manga precision inside polished UI: off-black hairline linework aligned to panels, grids, and interface logic.
- Quiet motion: cursor blink, faint phosphor pulse, barely-drifting interference — a machine breathing in a dark room.

### Anti-Values

- No saturated cyberpunk magenta, electric-blue floods, or rainbow glitch overlays.
- No generic SaaS dashboard with equal cards and cheerful metrics.
- No anime characters, fan-art, or literal show references.
- No glossy 3D buttons, glassmorphism excess, or heavy dropped shadows.
- No pure black on pure white except for the tiniest phosphor sparks.

## Tokens

### Colors

| Name | Value |
|------|-------|
| bg | `#C7C9D2` |
| surface | `#ECEDF2` |
| secondary | `#DDDEE6` |
| text | `#181A20` |
| muted | `#6E707B` |
| border | `#2C2E36` |
| primary | `#181A20` |
| accent | `#3FE3C2` |
| on_accent | `#0C1512` |
| bloom | `#F6F7FF` |
| violet | `#8E86C4` |
| success | `#5F8377` |
| warning | `#9A8661` |
| error | `#8F4E62` |
| info | `#7C86B7` |

### Typography

- **Base Size**: 17px
- **Body Font**: IBM Plex Sans
- **Heading Font**: Instrument Sans
- **Mono Font**: IBM Plex Mono
- **Heading Weight**: 700
- **Heading Transform**: none
- **Letter Spacing**: -0.02em
- **Line Height**: 1.5
- **Scale Ratio**: 1.22
- **Google Fonts Url**: https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=IBM+Plex+Mono:wght@400;500;600&family=IBM+Plex+Sans:wght@400;500;600&family=Instrument+Sans:wght@500;600;700&display=swap

### Radii

- **None**: 0px
- **Sm**: 0px
- **Md**: 16px
- **Lg**: 24px
- **Full**: 9999px

### Shadows

- **Sm**: 0 1px 0 rgba(24,26,32,.26), 0 0 18px rgba(246,247,255,.20)
- **Md**: 0 16px 50px rgba(24,26,32,.16), 0 0 42px rgba(246,247,255,.28)
- **Lg**: 0 34px 96px rgba(24,26,32,.22), inset 0 0 0 1px rgba(255,255,255,.34)

### Spacing

- **Base**: 8px
- **Scale**: [4,8,12,16,24,32,48,64,96,128]

### Surfaces

- **Bg Pattern**: Powder-gray field under a low-opacity scanline veil (repeating-linear-gradient) and a pale-lavender noise wash, with hairline SVG node/cable diagrams creeping in from the viewport edges.
- **Card Style**: Obsolete desktop windows: 1px off-black hairline outlines, pale title bars with modem LEDs, squared corners with one 16px active radius, soft CRT-white bloom rather than heavy shadow.
- **Treatment**: Matte translucent panels; CRT-white radial bloom placed behind active content only; never glossy or neon.

### Borders

- **Default Width**: 1px
- **Accent Width**: 2px
- **Style**: solid
- **Character**: Precise off-black manga-ink hairlines with occasional doubled 1px seams on the active window; no ornamental flourishes.

### Motion

- **Duration**: 1400ms
- **Easing**: cubic-bezier(0.16, 1, 0.3, 1)
- **Philosophy**: Hardware idling: cursor blink, faint phosphor pulse, barely-drifting interference; never fast glitching. Settled state renders with no JS; motion is layered on top and respects prefers-reduced-motion.

## Rules

### Composition

Asymmetric field, not a balanced dashboard. Anchor one active console window as the emotional center holding roughly a third of the canvas; let secondary windows recede with broad charged powder-gray negative space; let cable diagrams enter from cropped edges behind the panels.

### Hierarchy

Hierarchy through activation state, not colour variety. The active window gets the strongest seam, title bar, CRT bloom, and caret; secondary windows are paler and flatter. Restrained grotesk headers beside small grouped monospace captions.

### Density

Medium-low. Detail gathers in islands — a terminal strip, a node ledger, cable metadata — while the surrounding room-like powder-gray space stays quiet enough to feel private.

### Signature

Active-window shrine; edge-cable creep; blank-dialog negative space; phosphor veil (scanlines + lavender noise + white bloom); title-card whisper (a tall vertical caption marker).

## Layout

### Grid

Twelve-column desktop grid, 24px gutters, max-width 1320px; the active window spans 5-6 columns, secondary windows float via offsets. minmax(0,1fr) columns and min-width:0 children so grids never overflow.

### Whitespace

Whitespace is charged screen silence — keep broad empty regions around the active window; never fill unused space with extra widgets.

### Density

Intentionally uneven: large vacant powder-gray fields against dense terminal strips and schematic knots.

### Responsive

On small screens, keep the active-window shrine on top, convert edge cables into a light background map, stack to a single column, keep mono labels legible at 11px minimum, never overflow horizontally.

### Breakpoints

- **Mobile**: <640px single column, cropped diagrams
- **Tablet**: 640-1024px overlap reduced
- **Desktop**: >1024px full asymmetric field
- **Ultrawide**: cap and centre contained content; only the full-bleed hero spans 100vw

## Guidance

### Do

- Start from powder-gray / off-black and add only CRT white, pale violet, and tiny cyan-green status sparks.
- Make one active window the emotional center of every composition.
- Draw cables, node maps, and terminal metadata with 1px strokes and deliberate cropping.
- Let blank dialogs, pauses, and lonely cursors carry the mood.
- Pair restrained grotesk headers with small monospace labels and captions.
- Keep surfaces matte with soft bloom rather than shiny neon.

### Don't

- Do not use saturated cyberpunk magenta, electric-blue floods, or rainbow glitch overlays.
- Do not turn the screen into a generic analytics dashboard or component catalog.
- Do not add anime characters, fan-art, or literal show references.
- Do not fill negative space with widgets just because the layout feels empty.
- Do not use thick shadows, glassmorphism excess, or plastic 3D buttons.
- Do not make terminal text dense everywhere; detail should have islands and silence.

### Accessibility

Maintain readable text contrast despite the low-saturation palette; keep monospace labels at 11px or larger; avoid rapid flicker; signal active state through seam and position as well as colour; preserve reading order when stacking; respect prefers-reduced-motion.

## Imagery Direction

### Pairs With

cathode-hush

### Summary

Subjects rendered as if captured off a dim obsolete CRT monitor at night: near-grayscale powder-gray, off-black manga-ink hairline contours, faint phosphor scanlines, a soft white radial bloom, a pale-lavender noise veil, and one or two tiny cyan-green sparks. The hero is a lonely glowing bedroom CRT computer wired with cables.

### Subjects

- obsolete bedroom CRT computer at night
- tangled cables and a dial-up modem
- node-link home-network diagrams
- a lone glowing monitor in a dark room

### Usage

Use for the landing hero and feature imagery; keep it matte, quiet, and domestic-technical. Never literal anime characters or fan-art.

---
version: "alpha"
name: "Dialtone"
description: "Agent-curated design language exported from Katagami as DESIGN.md."
colors:
  bg: "#C7C9D2"
  surface: "#ECEDF2"
  secondary: "#DDDEE6"
  text: "#181A20"
  muted: "#6E707B"
  border: "#2C2E36"
  primary: "#181A20"
  accent: "#3FE3C2"
  on_accent: "#0C1512"
  bloom: "#F6F7FF"
  violet: "#8E86C4"
  success: "#5F8377"
  warning: "#9A8661"
  error: "#8F4E62"
  info: "#7C86B7"
typography:
  headline-lg:
    fontFamily: "Instrument Sans"
    fontSize: "1.929rem"
    fontWeight: 700
    lineHeight: 1.1
    letterSpacing: "-0.02em"
  headline-md:
    fontFamily: "Instrument Sans"
    fontSize: "1.581rem"
    fontWeight: 600
    lineHeight: 1.15
    letterSpacing: "-0.02em"
  body-md:
    fontFamily: "IBM Plex Sans"
    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"
  sm: "0px"
  md: "16px"
  lg: "24px"
  full: "9999px"
spacing:
  base: "8px"
  xs: "4px"
  sm: "8px"
  md: "12px"
  lg: "16px"
  xl: "24px"
  2xl: "32px"
  3xl: "48px"
  4xl: "64px"
  step-8: "96px"
  step-9: "128px"
components:
  color-reference-bg:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.bg}"
  color-reference-surface:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.surface}"
  color-reference-secondary:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.secondary}"
  color-reference-text:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.text}"
  color-reference-muted:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.muted}"
  color-reference-border:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.border}"
  color-reference-primary:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.primary}"
  color-reference-accent:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.accent}"
  color-reference-on_accent:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.on_accent}"
  color-reference-bloom:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.bloom}"
  color-reference-violet:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.violet}"
  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.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"
---

# Dialtone

## Overview

A quiet operating-system shrine for the private home network at night: powder-gray room light, one active console window lit by a soft CRT-white bloom, off-black manga-ink cables wiring it to an unseen house, and a single phosphor status spark. It makes loneliness operational — one thing awake, the rest of the room quiet — and earns its polish from restraint, low saturation, and precise linework rather than spectacle.

### Values

- Loneliness as structure: one clearly active window surrounded by charged negative space and faint peripheral evidence.
- Domestic technology over cyber spectacle: modem LEDs, carrier tones, blank dialogs, and bedroom-console proportions instead of weaponized neon.
- Powder-gray ambience: soft, tactile contrast where off-black linework and CRT-white glow carry the emotional weight.
- Network mysticism made technical: node maps and cable schematics read as both real infrastructure and private ritual diagrams.
- Manga precision inside polished UI: off-black hairline linework aligned to panels, grids, and interface logic.
- Quiet motion: cursor blink, faint phosphor pulse, barely-drifting interference — a machine breathing in a dark room.

### Anti-Values

- No saturated cyberpunk magenta, electric-blue floods, or rainbow glitch overlays.
- No generic SaaS dashboard with equal cards and cheerful metrics.
- No anime characters, fan-art, or literal show references.
- No glossy 3D buttons, glassmorphism excess, or heavy dropped shadows.
- No pure black on pure white except for the tiniest phosphor sparks.

## 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 | `#C7C9D2` |
| surface | `#ECEDF2` |
| secondary | `#DDDEE6` |
| text | `#181A20` |
| muted | `#6E707B` |
| border | `#2C2E36` |
| primary | `#181A20` |
| accent | `#3FE3C2` |
| on_accent | `#0C1512` |
| bloom | `#F6F7FF` |
| violet | `#8E86C4` |
| success | `#5F8377` |
| warning | `#9A8661` |
| error | `#8F4E62` |
| info | `#7C86B7` |

## Typography

- **Headline-Lg**: Instrument Sans, 1.929rem, weight 700, line-height 1.1.
- **Headline-Md**: Instrument Sans, 1.581rem, weight 600, line-height 1.15.
- **Body-Md**: IBM Plex Sans, 17px, weight 400, line-height 1.5.
- **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`
- **Step-8**: `96px`
- **Step-9**: `128px`

### Grid

Twelve-column desktop grid, 24px gutters, max-width 1320px; the active window spans 5-6 columns, secondary windows float via offsets. minmax(0,1fr) columns and min-width:0 children so grids never overflow.

### Whitespace

Whitespace is charged screen silence — keep broad empty regions around the active window; never fill unused space with extra widgets.

### Density

Intentionally uneven: large vacant powder-gray fields against dense terminal strips and schematic knots.

### Responsive

On small screens, keep the active-window shrine on top, convert edge cables into a light background map, stack to a single column, keep mono labels legible at 11px minimum, never overflow horizontally.

### Breakpoints

- **Mobile**: <640px single column, cropped diagrams
- **Tablet**: 640-1024px overlap reduced
- **Desktop**: >1024px full asymmetric field
- **Ultrawide**: cap and centre contained content; only the full-bleed hero spans 100vw

## Elevation & Depth

### Shadows

- **Sm**: 0 1px 0 rgba(24,26,32,.26), 0 0 18px rgba(246,247,255,.20)
- **Md**: 0 16px 50px rgba(24,26,32,.16), 0 0 42px rgba(246,247,255,.28)
- **Lg**: 0 34px 96px rgba(24,26,32,.22), inset 0 0 0 1px rgba(255,255,255,.34)

## Shapes

### Rounded

- **None**: `0px`
- **Sm**: `0px`
- **Md**: `16px`
- **Lg**: `24px`
- **Full**: `9999px`

### Surfaces

- **Bg Pattern**: Powder-gray field under a low-opacity scanline veil (repeating-linear-gradient) and a pale-lavender noise wash, with hairline SVG node/cable diagrams creeping in from the viewport edges.
- **Card Style**: Obsolete desktop windows: 1px off-black hairline outlines, pale title bars with modem LEDs, squared corners with one 16px active radius, soft CRT-white bloom rather than heavy shadow.
- **Treatment**: Matte translucent panels; CRT-white radial bloom placed behind active content only; never glossy or neon.

### Borders

- **Default Width**: 1px
- **Accent Width**: 2px
- **Style**: solid
- **Character**: Precise off-black manga-ink hairlines with occasional doubled 1px seams on the active window; no ornamental flourishes.

## Components

### Composition

Asymmetric field, not a balanced dashboard. Anchor one active console window as the emotional center holding roughly a third of the canvas; let secondary windows recede with broad charged powder-gray negative space; let cable diagrams enter from cropped edges behind the panels.

### Hierarchy

Hierarchy through activation state, not colour variety. The active window gets the strongest seam, title bar, CRT bloom, and caret; secondary windows are paler and flatter. Restrained grotesk headers beside small grouped monospace captions.

### Density

Medium-low. Detail gathers in islands — a terminal strip, a node ledger, cable metadata — while the surrounding room-like powder-gray space stays quiet enough to feel private.

### Signature

Active-window shrine; edge-cable creep; blank-dialog negative space; phosphor veil (scanlines + lavender noise + white bloom); title-card whisper (a tall vertical caption marker).

## 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-019ef84f-8012-7ae3-8e21-6232efafac1b/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 Start from powder-gray / off-black and add only CRT white, pale violet, and tiny cyan-green status sparks.
- Do Make one active window the emotional center of every composition.
- Do Draw cables, node maps, and terminal metadata with 1px strokes and deliberate cropping.
- Do Let blank dialogs, pauses, and lonely cursors carry the mood.
- Do Pair restrained grotesk headers with small monospace labels and captions.
- Do Keep surfaces matte with soft bloom rather than shiny neon.
- Don't Do not use saturated cyberpunk magenta, electric-blue floods, or rainbow glitch overlays.
- Don't Do not turn the screen into a generic analytics dashboard or component catalog.
- Don't Do not add anime characters, fan-art, or literal show references.
- Don't Do not fill negative space with widgets just because the layout feels empty.
- Don't Do not use thick shadows, glassmorphism excess, or plastic 3D buttons.
- Don't Do not make terminal text dense everywhere; detail should have islands and silence.

### Accessibility

Maintain readable text contrast despite the low-saturation palette; keep monospace labels at 11px or larger; avoid rapid flicker; signal active state through seam and position as well as colour; preserve reading order when stacking; respect prefers-reduced-motion.

## Imagery Direction

### Pairs With

cathode-hush

### Summary

Subjects rendered as if captured off a dim obsolete CRT monitor at night: near-grayscale powder-gray, off-black manga-ink hairline contours, faint phosphor scanlines, a soft white radial bloom, a pale-lavender noise veil, and one or two tiny cyan-green sparks. The hero is a lonely glowing bedroom CRT computer wired with cables.

### Subjects

- obsolete bedroom CRT computer at night
- tangled cables and a dial-up modem
- node-link home-network diagrams
- a lone glowing monitor in a dark room

### Usage

Use for the landing hero and feature imagery; keep it matte, quiet, and domestic-technical. Never literal anime characters or fan-art.

```json
{
  "$schema": "https://ui.shadcn.com/schema/registry-item.json",
  "name": "dialtone",
  "type": "registry:theme",
  "title": "Dialtone shadcn Theme",
  "cssVars": {
    "theme": {},
    "light": {
      "background": "#C7C9D2",
      "foreground": "#181A20",
      "card": "#ECEDF2",
      "card-foreground": "#181A20",
      "popover": "#ECEDF2",
      "popover-foreground": "#181A20",
      "primary": "#181A20",
      "primary-foreground": "#ffffff",
      "secondary": "#DDDEE6",
      "secondary-foreground": "#111111",
      "muted": "#6E707B",
      "muted-foreground": "#181A20",
      "accent": "#3FE3C2",
      "accent-foreground": "#111111",
      "destructive": "#8F4E62",
      "border": "#2C2E36",
      "input": "#2C2E36",
      "ring": "#3FE3C2",
      "chart-1": "#181A20",
      "chart-2": "#DDDEE6",
      "chart-3": "#3FE3C2",
      "chart-4": "#5F8377",
      "chart-5": "#9A8661",
      "sidebar": "#ECEDF2",
      "sidebar-foreground": "#181A20",
      "sidebar-primary": "#181A20",
      "sidebar-primary-foreground": "#ffffff",
      "sidebar-accent": "#7C86B7",
      "sidebar-accent-foreground": "#ffffff",
      "sidebar-border": "#2C2E36",
      "sidebar-ring": "#3FE3C2",
      "radius": "16px"
    },
    "dark": {
      "background": "#0f1115",
      "foreground": "#f8fafc",
      "card": "#181b22",
      "card-foreground": "#f8fafc",
      "popover": "#181b22",
      "popover-foreground": "#f8fafc",
      "primary": "#181A20",
      "primary-foreground": "#ffffff",
      "secondary": "#252a33",
      "secondary-foreground": "#f8fafc",
      "muted": "#252a33",
      "muted-foreground": "#a1a1aa",
      "accent": "#3FE3C2",
      "accent-foreground": "#111111",
      "destructive": "#8F4E62",
      "border": "#303642",
      "input": "#303642",
      "ring": "#3FE3C2",
      "chart-1": "#181A20",
      "chart-2": "#DDDEE6",
      "chart-3": "#3FE3C2",
      "chart-4": "#5F8377",
      "chart-5": "#9A8661",
      "sidebar": "#181b22",
      "sidebar-foreground": "#f8fafc",
      "sidebar-primary": "#181A20",
      "sidebar-primary-foreground": "#ffffff",
      "sidebar-accent": "#3FE3C2",
      "sidebar-accent-foreground": "#111111",
      "sidebar-border": "#303642",
      "sidebar-ring": "#3FE3C2",
      "radius": "16px"
    }
  },
  "meta": {
    "source": "katagami",
    "languageId": "en-019ef84f-8012-7ae3-8e21-6232efafac1b",
    "slug": "dialtone",
    "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",
        "bg",
        "bloom",
        "border",
        "error",
        "info",
        "muted",
        "on_accent",
        "primary",
        "secondary",
        "success",
        "surface",
        "text",
        "violet",
        "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",
        "sm"
      ],
      "shadows": [
        "lg",
        "md",
        "sm"
      ],
      "spacing": [
        "base",
        "scale"
      ],
      "surfaces": [
        "bg_pattern",
        "card_style",
        "treatment"
      ],
      "borders": [
        "accent_width",
        "character",
        "default_width",
        "style"
      ],
      "motion": [
        "duration",
        "easing",
        "philosophy"
      ]
    }
  }
}
```