Caret Ledger

# Caret Ledger

## Philosophy

Caret Ledger turns terminal fluency into a premium operations product language: command-first, log-aware, dense but calm, with color reserved for semantic structure rather than retro decoration. Every action is a line you can read back.

### Values

- Command surfaces should make complex operations feel inspectable, reversible, and fast.
- Terminal references must become useful product structure, not nostalgic costume or hacker theater.
- Dense information can feel calm when typography, separators, and semantic color are disciplined.
- Hardware-era affordances should appear as tactile control geometry and status modules, not arcade chrome.

### Anti-Values

- No vaporwave, cyberpunk glow, novelty CRT filters, or illegible green-on-black hacker aesthetics.
- No square-grid wallpaper, dotted default texture, decorative side rails, rainbow sprawl, or color used as garnish.
- No generic SaaS card dashboard with terminal labels pasted on top.

### Visual Character

- Deep cool-graphite ink ground uses broad horizontal luminance bands and soft radial panel light, never square grids or dotted texture.
- Panels are translucent graphite fills with one-pixel cool borders, clipped-corner radii, and inset highlight lines that recall workstation hardware.
- Typography pairs compact geometric Sora labels with crisp Azeret Mono command text, using tabular numerals and measured negative letter spacing.
- Semantic syntax color is limited to amber commands, cyan data, violet selection, plus quiet green/yellow/red/blue state across code-like content.
- Interactive controls use a bracket focus outline, a prompt glyph, segmented mode pills, and quiet status chips instead of decorative stripes.

## Tokens

### Colors

| Name | Value |
|------|-------|
| bg | `#101318` |
| surface | `#181D24` |
| surface_2 | `#1F2630` |
| text | `#E7E1D4` |
| muted | `#8D96A3` |
| border | `#303845` |
| accent | `#9B8CFF` |
| accent_command | `#E7A84B` |
| accent_data | `#5BC8D6` |
| primary | `#E7A84B` |
| on_accent | `#101318` |
| success | `#79D18B` |
| warning | `#F0C35B` |
| error | `#EF6F6C` |
| info | `#6BC7F1` |

### Typography

- **Base Size**: 17px
- **Body Font**: Sora
- **Heading Font**: Sora
- **Mono Font**: Azeret Mono
- **Heading Weight**: 600
- **Heading Transform**: none
- **Letter Spacing**: -0.018em
- **Line Height**: 1.48
- **Scale Ratio**: 1.2
- **Google Fonts Url**: https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Azeret+Mono:wght@400;500;600;700&family=Sora:wght@400;500;600;700&display=swap

### Radii

- **None**: 0
- **Sm**: 3px
- **Md**: 7px
- **Lg**: 12px
- **Full**: 9999px
- **Clip**: 10px

### Shadows

- **Sm**: 0 1px 0 rgba(255,255,255,0.04), 0 10px 24px rgba(0,0,0,0.20)
- **Md**: 0 1px 0 rgba(255,255,255,0.05), 0 18px 48px rgba(0,0,0,0.30)
- **Lg**: 0 1px 0 rgba(255,255,255,0.06), 0 32px 90px rgba(0,0,0,0.42)

### Spacing

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

### Surfaces

- **Treatment**: Translucent graphite panels over a near-black ink field with broad horizontal banding, subtle inner highlights, and no default dot or square-grid texture.
- **Card Style**: Low-radius clipped-corner workstation modules with a one-pixel inner highlight, a command/hardware header, and compact metadata rows.
- **Bg Pattern**: Layered radial panel light plus oversized horizontal scan bands at very low opacity; never a square grid and never a repeated dotted pattern.

### Borders

- **Default Width**: 1px
- **Accent Width**: 2px
- **Style**: graphite separators and inset highlights with a bracket focus outline on active entry
- **Character**: Cool graphite separators define structure; accent edges appear only for active focus, selection, warnings, or terminal prompt affordances — never as card rails.

### Motion

- **Duration**: 160ms
- **Easing**: cubic-bezier(0.2, 0.8, 0.2, 1)
- **Philosophy**: Motion is operational and minimal: panels clarify state with short opacity/translate changes, command focus snaps into place, and logs stream without theatrical glitch. The settled state renders with no JavaScript; motion is layered on top and respects prefers-reduced-motion.

## Rules

### Composition

Build around a command spine, an operational log, and adjacent inspection panes; hierarchy comes from pane scale and syntax grouping rather than decorative frames.

### Hierarchy

Use compact Sora section labels, monospaced command lines, tabular metrics, and restrained semantic color so users can parse state, action, and evidence at a glance.

### Density

High information density is allowed, but rows must breathe with an 8px rhythm, quiet graphite zebra, and grouped whitespace so the interface stays calm.

### Signature

- Command input bars include a fixed prompt glyph, segmented mode pills, and a bracket focus outline that appears only during active entry.
- Log streams use semantic syntax spans for actor, action, object, timestamp, and state, with color doing structural parsing rather than decoration.
- Panels use clipped-corner masks, one-pixel inner highlights, and small hardware labels to create workstation material without nostalgic ornament.
- Active selections appear as translucent violet fills with paired top-and-bottom rules, never as side stripes or colored card rails.
- Data tables compress into terminal packets on mobile, preserving command labels and semantic status chips instead of becoming generic cards.

## Layout

### Grid

Desktop uses a 12-column product shell with a command rail, a primary log/main, and an inspector; mobile collapses into stacked terminal packets without square-grid backgrounds.

### Whitespace

Whitespace is narrow but intentional: 8px row rhythm, 16px pane padding, and 24-32px macro gaps around primary operational zones.

### Density

dense but calm

### Responsive

Every artifact renders from ~390px mobile (single column, terminal packets) to 2560px+ ultra-wide (capped, centred content; only the hero spans 100vw).

### Breakpoints

- **Mobile**: 390px
- **Tablet**: 760px
- **Desktop**: 1100px
- **Wide**: 1440px

## Guidance

### Do

- Use semantic syntax color for commands, data, selected state, success, warning, error, and informational values.
- Keep surfaces clean with horizontal luminance bands and translucent graphite panels; justify every texture as state or material.
- Design scene-first operational workflows such as deploy consoles, AI runbooks, observability workbenches, or data command centers.
- Use bracket focus, prompt glyphs, clipped corners, and compact labels as the recurring product grammar.

### Don't

- Do not use square-grid backgrounds, default dotted textures, decorative side rails, colored card stripes, or arbitrary confetti.
- Do not turn the language into vaporwave, cyberpunk, arcade CRT, or green hacker nostalgia.
- Do not spread accent colors across unrelated decoration; every color must identify state, syntax, or interaction.
- Do not rely on generic dashboard cards without command, log, or inspection behavior.

### Accessibility

Body text rides at 17px with high contrast on the ink ground (text #E7E1D4 on #101318). Every form control is explicitly styled — no browser defaults. Focus is a visible amber bracket or violet ring. State is never carried by color alone: status chips and log states pair color with a text label. Motion respects prefers-reduced-motion and the settled state renders without JavaScript.

## Imagery Direction

### Pairs With

graphite-console

### Summary

Subjects rendered as if inspected through a precision operations workstation: cool graphite tonality over a deep ink field, broad horizontal scan bands, fine cyan edge highlights, and syntax-color annotation tags (amber command, cyan data, violet selection) with one translucent violet selection mask.

### Subjects

- command spines feeding stacked ledger bars
- operational nodes and edges under inspection
- machined control surfaces and status modules
- deploy and runbook scenes parsed by the console

### Usage

Use for full-bleed landing heroes and section imagery. Keep the subject filling the frame; annotation tags map to semantic syntax roles; never let a device bezel become the subject; no text, letters, or logos.

---
version: "alpha"
name: "Caret Ledger"
description: "Agent-curated design language exported from Katagami as DESIGN.md."
colors:
  bg: "#101318"
  surface: "#181D24"
  surface_2: "#1F2630"
  text: "#E7E1D4"
  muted: "#8D96A3"
  border: "#303845"
  accent: "#9B8CFF"
  accent_command: "#E7A84B"
  accent_data: "#5BC8D6"
  primary: "#E7A84B"
  on_accent: "#101318"
  success: "#79D18B"
  warning: "#F0C35B"
  error: "#EF6F6C"
  info: "#6BC7F1"
typography:
  headline-lg:
    fontFamily: "Sora"
    fontSize: "2.075rem"
    fontWeight: 700
    lineHeight: 1.1
    letterSpacing: "-0.018em"
  headline-md:
    fontFamily: "Sora"
    fontSize: "1.66rem"
    fontWeight: 600
    lineHeight: 1.15
    letterSpacing: "-0.018em"
  body-md:
    fontFamily: "Sora"
    fontSize: "17px"
    fontWeight: 400
    lineHeight: 1.5
    letterSpacing: "-0.018em"
  label-md:
    fontFamily: "Azeret Mono"
    fontSize: "0.75rem"
    fontWeight: 600
    lineHeight: 1
    letterSpacing: "0.08em"
rounded:
  none: "0px"
  sm: "3px"
  md: "7px"
  lg: "12px"
  full: "9999px"
  clip: "10px"
spacing:
  base: "8px"
  xs: "4px"
  sm: "8px"
  md: "12px"
  lg: "16px"
  xl: "24px"
  2xl: "32px"
  3xl: "48px"
  4xl: "64px"
components:
  color-reference-bg:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.bg}"
  color-reference-surface:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.surface}"
  color-reference-surface_2:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.surface_2}"
  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_command:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.accent_command}"
  color-reference-accent_data:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.accent_data}"
  color-reference-primary:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.primary}"
  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.primary}"
    textColor: "#000000"
    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"
---

# Caret Ledger

## Overview

Caret Ledger turns terminal fluency into a premium operations product language: command-first, log-aware, dense but calm, with color reserved for semantic structure rather than retro decoration. Every action is a line you can read back.

### Values

- Command surfaces should make complex operations feel inspectable, reversible, and fast.
- Terminal references must become useful product structure, not nostalgic costume or hacker theater.
- Dense information can feel calm when typography, separators, and semantic color are disciplined.
- Hardware-era affordances should appear as tactile control geometry and status modules, not arcade chrome.

### Anti-Values

- No vaporwave, cyberpunk glow, novelty CRT filters, or illegible green-on-black hacker aesthetics.
- No square-grid wallpaper, dotted default texture, decorative side rails, rainbow sprawl, or color used as garnish.
- No generic SaaS card dashboard with terminal labels pasted on top.

### Visual Character

- Deep cool-graphite ink ground uses broad horizontal luminance bands and soft radial panel light, never square grids or dotted texture.
- Panels are translucent graphite fills with one-pixel cool borders, clipped-corner radii, and inset highlight lines that recall workstation hardware.
- Typography pairs compact geometric Sora labels with crisp Azeret Mono command text, using tabular numerals and measured negative letter spacing.
- Semantic syntax color is limited to amber commands, cyan data, violet selection, plus quiet green/yellow/red/blue state across code-like content.
- Interactive controls use a bracket focus outline, a prompt glyph, segmented mode pills, and quiet status chips instead of decorative stripes.

## 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 | `#101318` |
| surface | `#181D24` |
| surface_2 | `#1F2630` |
| text | `#E7E1D4` |
| muted | `#8D96A3` |
| border | `#303845` |
| accent | `#9B8CFF` |
| accent_command | `#E7A84B` |
| accent_data | `#5BC8D6` |
| primary | `#E7A84B` |
| on_accent | `#101318` |
| success | `#79D18B` |
| warning | `#F0C35B` |
| error | `#EF6F6C` |
| info | `#6BC7F1` |

## Typography

- **Headline-Lg**: Sora, 2.075rem, weight 700, line-height 1.1.
- **Headline-Md**: Sora, 1.66rem, weight 600, line-height 1.15.
- **Body-Md**: Sora, 17px, weight 400, line-height 1.5.
- **Label-Md**: Azeret 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`

### Grid

Desktop uses a 12-column product shell with a command rail, a primary log/main, and an inspector; mobile collapses into stacked terminal packets without square-grid backgrounds.

### Whitespace

Whitespace is narrow but intentional: 8px row rhythm, 16px pane padding, and 24-32px macro gaps around primary operational zones.

### Density

dense but calm

### Responsive

Every artifact renders from ~390px mobile (single column, terminal packets) to 2560px+ ultra-wide (capped, centred content; only the hero spans 100vw).

### Breakpoints

- **Mobile**: 390px
- **Tablet**: 760px
- **Desktop**: 1100px
- **Wide**: 1440px

## Elevation & Depth

### Shadows

- **Sm**: 0 1px 0 rgba(255,255,255,0.04), 0 10px 24px rgba(0,0,0,0.20)
- **Md**: 0 1px 0 rgba(255,255,255,0.05), 0 18px 48px rgba(0,0,0,0.30)
- **Lg**: 0 1px 0 rgba(255,255,255,0.06), 0 32px 90px rgba(0,0,0,0.42)

## Shapes

### Rounded

- **None**: `0px`
- **Sm**: `3px`
- **Md**: `7px`
- **Lg**: `12px`
- **Full**: `9999px`
- **Clip**: `10px`

### Surfaces

- **Treatment**: Translucent graphite panels over a near-black ink field with broad horizontal banding, subtle inner highlights, and no default dot or square-grid texture.
- **Card Style**: Low-radius clipped-corner workstation modules with a one-pixel inner highlight, a command/hardware header, and compact metadata rows.
- **Bg Pattern**: Layered radial panel light plus oversized horizontal scan bands at very low opacity; never a square grid and never a repeated dotted pattern.

### Borders

- **Default Width**: 1px
- **Accent Width**: 2px
- **Style**: graphite separators and inset highlights with a bracket focus outline on active entry
- **Character**: Cool graphite separators define structure; accent edges appear only for active focus, selection, warnings, or terminal prompt affordances — never as card rails.

## Components

### Composition

Build around a command spine, an operational log, and adjacent inspection panes; hierarchy comes from pane scale and syntax grouping rather than decorative frames.

### Hierarchy

Use compact Sora section labels, monospaced command lines, tabular metrics, and restrained semantic color so users can parse state, action, and evidence at a glance.

### Density

High information density is allowed, but rows must breathe with an 8px rhythm, quiet graphite zebra, and grouped whitespace so the interface stays calm.

### Signature

- Command input bars include a fixed prompt glyph, segmented mode pills, and a bracket focus outline that appears only during active entry.
- Log streams use semantic syntax spans for actor, action, object, timestamp, and state, with color doing structural parsing rather than decoration.
- Panels use clipped-corner masks, one-pixel inner highlights, and small hardware labels to create workstation material without nostalgic ornament.
- Active selections appear as translucent violet fills with paired top-and-bottom rules, never as side stripes or colored card rails.
- Data tables compress into terminal packets on mobile, preserving command labels and semantic status chips instead of becoming generic cards.

## 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-019ef9ad-bb34-7241-9fb2-8b5ce772e041/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 Use semantic syntax color for commands, data, selected state, success, warning, error, and informational values.
- Do Keep surfaces clean with horizontal luminance bands and translucent graphite panels; justify every texture as state or material.
- Do Design scene-first operational workflows such as deploy consoles, AI runbooks, observability workbenches, or data command centers.
- Do Use bracket focus, prompt glyphs, clipped corners, and compact labels as the recurring product grammar.
- Don't Do not use square-grid backgrounds, default dotted textures, decorative side rails, colored card stripes, or arbitrary confetti.
- Don't Do not turn the language into vaporwave, cyberpunk, arcade CRT, or green hacker nostalgia.
- Don't Do not spread accent colors across unrelated decoration; every color must identify state, syntax, or interaction.
- Don't Do not rely on generic dashboard cards without command, log, or inspection behavior.

### Accessibility

Body text rides at 17px with high contrast on the ink ground (text #E7E1D4 on #101318). Every form control is explicitly styled — no browser defaults. Focus is a visible amber bracket or violet ring. State is never carried by color alone: status chips and log states pair color with a text label. Motion respects prefers-reduced-motion and the settled state renders without JavaScript.

## Imagery Direction

### Pairs With

graphite-console

### Summary

Subjects rendered as if inspected through a precision operations workstation: cool graphite tonality over a deep ink field, broad horizontal scan bands, fine cyan edge highlights, and syntax-color annotation tags (amber command, cyan data, violet selection) with one translucent violet selection mask.

### Subjects

- command spines feeding stacked ledger bars
- operational nodes and edges under inspection
- machined control surfaces and status modules
- deploy and runbook scenes parsed by the console

### Usage

Use for full-bleed landing heroes and section imagery. Keep the subject filling the frame; annotation tags map to semantic syntax roles; never let a device bezel become the subject; no text, letters, or logos.

```json
{
  "$schema": "https://ui.shadcn.com/schema/registry-item.json",
  "name": "caret-ledger",
  "type": "registry:theme",
  "title": "Caret Ledger shadcn Theme",
  "cssVars": {
    "theme": {},
    "light": {
      "background": "#101318",
      "foreground": "#E7E1D4",
      "card": "#181D24",
      "card-foreground": "#E7E1D4",
      "popover": "#181D24",
      "popover-foreground": "#E7E1D4",
      "primary": "#E7A84B",
      "primary-foreground": "#ffffff",
      "secondary": "#f4f4f5",
      "secondary-foreground": "#111111",
      "muted": "#8D96A3",
      "muted-foreground": "#E7E1D4",
      "accent": "#9B8CFF",
      "accent-foreground": "#ffffff",
      "destructive": "#EF6F6C",
      "border": "#303845",
      "input": "#303845",
      "ring": "#9B8CFF",
      "chart-1": "#E7A84B",
      "chart-2": "#f4f4f5",
      "chart-3": "#9B8CFF",
      "chart-4": "#79D18B",
      "chart-5": "#F0C35B",
      "sidebar": "#181D24",
      "sidebar-foreground": "#E7E1D4",
      "sidebar-primary": "#E7A84B",
      "sidebar-primary-foreground": "#ffffff",
      "sidebar-accent": "#6BC7F1",
      "sidebar-accent-foreground": "#ffffff",
      "sidebar-border": "#303845",
      "sidebar-ring": "#9B8CFF",
      "radius": "7px"
    },
    "dark": {
      "background": "#0f1115",
      "foreground": "#f8fafc",
      "card": "#181b22",
      "card-foreground": "#f8fafc",
      "popover": "#181b22",
      "popover-foreground": "#f8fafc",
      "primary": "#E7A84B",
      "primary-foreground": "#ffffff",
      "secondary": "#252a33",
      "secondary-foreground": "#f8fafc",
      "muted": "#252a33",
      "muted-foreground": "#a1a1aa",
      "accent": "#9B8CFF",
      "accent-foreground": "#ffffff",
      "destructive": "#EF6F6C",
      "border": "#303642",
      "input": "#303642",
      "ring": "#9B8CFF",
      "chart-1": "#E7A84B",
      "chart-2": "#f4f4f5",
      "chart-3": "#9B8CFF",
      "chart-4": "#79D18B",
      "chart-5": "#F0C35B",
      "sidebar": "#181b22",
      "sidebar-foreground": "#f8fafc",
      "sidebar-primary": "#E7A84B",
      "sidebar-primary-foreground": "#ffffff",
      "sidebar-accent": "#9B8CFF",
      "sidebar-accent-foreground": "#ffffff",
      "sidebar-border": "#303642",
      "sidebar-ring": "#9B8CFF",
      "radius": "7px"
    }
  },
  "meta": {
    "source": "katagami",
    "languageId": "en-019ef9ad-bb34-7241-9fb2-8b5ce772e041",
    "slug": "caret-ledger",
    "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_command",
        "accent_data",
        "bg",
        "border",
        "error",
        "info",
        "muted",
        "on_accent",
        "primary",
        "success",
        "surface",
        "surface_2",
        "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": [
        "clip",
        "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"
      ]
    }
  }
}
```