Designesy design system

Portable design judgment for designesy.org — version 0.1.4.

This page is the human face of the contract. Exact values, roles, and rules live here in overview form, and in full on the contracts surface. Machines read the JSON export.

v0.1.4Status · publicUpdated · 2026-07-13

Open machine export Full contract

What this contract is

Operating agreement

A Designesy contract answers exact value, role, application, behavior, avoidance, and verification. It is public artifact discipline — not legal advice or a client service agreement.

Token preview

Core color roles from the live foundation. Full tables live on the contracts surface and in the machine export.

TokenValueRole

--ink#ffffffPrimary text / foreground

--paper#000000Page background

--surface#0a0a0aCard / panel base

--signal#0133cbBrand accent (internal token name; public products avoid this vocabulary)

--signal-light#3358e8Accent hover / focus lift

--activation#fecc34Activation highlight (reserved)

Surfaces

01Human contractFull published contract on /contracts 02Machine export/contracts/design-system.json 03Agent skill/contracts/skill — SKILL.md format for AI coding agents 04Open design intelligencePackage catalog · this contract is entry one 05Lab One · PoiseSource lab · interaction rules adopted in v0.1.1 06Lab Two · TaktSource lab · interface-feel rules adopted in v0.1.2 07Lab Three · CadenceSource lab · typography rules adopted in v0.1.3 08Field check · PoiseKit One review that supported adoption 09Field check · TaktKit One review that supported adoption 10Field check · CadenceKit One review that supported adoption 11Public reviewField check of designesy.org against this contract

Adoption

Poise · adopted in v0.1.1

Lab One portable rules are contract material: wordmark breath, press settle, sound preference ownership, reduced motion, hover media discipline, and human public naming. Silence was not adoption — that version was the explicit order.

Takt adoption

Takt · adopted in v0.1.2

Lab Two portable rules are contract material: concentric radii, press scale (0.96 for cells, 0.985 for cards), image outlines, hit area floor, stagger rhythm, no transition:all, and spare will-change. Rules compiled from external design intelligence (Amicro, Krehel /better-ui) and verified on live CSS. Silence was not adoption — this version is the explicit order.

Cadence adoption

Cadence · adopted in v0.1.3

Lab Three portable rules are contract material: font smoothing on root, rem-based scale, line-height by role, tracking by size, measure cap, text-wrap balance and pretty, tabular numbers, ::selection with --signal, user-select on UI chrome, and 16px input floor. Rules compiled from external typography intelligence (Krehel /better-typography) and verified on live CSS. Three open tensions documented: font-synthesis, logical properties, and underline-from-font. Silence was not adoption — this version is the explicit order.

Design system contract v0.1.4. Live styles remain authoritative when they and this contract disagree. Human and machine surfaces stay synchronized.