Graph
Provenance chain
How sources become shipped work.
The living knowledge tree: how sources become shipped work through the Designesy pipeline. The Graph prevents design knowledge from becoming anonymous taste — every shipped artifact should trace backwards through this chain to a source.
The chain
Ten stages from source to shipped work. Each stage has public examples — real evidence, not abstract theory.
Source
Definition. Observed material — external design intelligence, prior work, real artifacts.
- External design intelligence research (W3C DTCG, Apple HIG, Material 3)
- Cuelume interaction sound library
- Transitions.dev motion reference
- Better-ui and better-typography agent skills
Observation
Definition. What was noticed. The raw finding before it becomes a claim.
- No existing tool compiles principles into verifiable contracts
- W3C DTCG 2025.10 does not define acoustic tokens
- Press feedback at scale(0.97) feels physical; scale(0) feels broken
Claim
Definition. A stated position derived from observation.
- Motion is structural communication, not ornament
- Acoustic tokens should be first-class design contract material
- If the response is louder than the action, it fails
Tension
Definition. An open problem or unresolved conflict.
- Block-axis logical properties not yet migrated
- Dual-source risk: human page and machine export can drift
- Font-synthesis, logical properties, underline-from-font open tensions
Principle
Definition. A working rule that resolves a tension.
- Purpose earns form
- Economy is intelligence
- Responsibility is a design material
Pattern
Definition. A reusable approach derived from principles.
- Labs compile into contracts: experiment, review, adopt, version
- Field checks verify live CSS against contract rules
- Case studies document shipped work with honest outcomes
Contract Rule
Definition. An enforceable, tokenized rule adopted into the design system.
- Press settle: scale(0.97) at ~160ms with ease-out
- Concentric border radius: outerRadius = innerRadius + padding
- Rem-based scale: every text size is a rem multiple of the 16px root
Token / Component / Behavior
Definition. The machine-readable expression of a contract rule.
- --ease-out: cubic-bezier(0.23, 1, 0.32, 1)
- --cue:action: press (Cuelume engine)
- shape.radius.default: 6px
Verification Artifact
Definition. Proof that the rule is live and working.
- Field check · Poise (pass with notes)
- Field check · Takt (pass with notes, 47,680 bytes CSS audited)
- Field check · Cadence (pass with notes, 48,755 bytes CSS audited)
- Keyboard path verification
Shipped Work
Definition. Real artifacts produced using the contract.
- designesy.org (live, v0.1.4, 12 packages, 5 machine exports)
- Tile — interactive series composer (617 views on X)
- Compile — principle compiler (built, pending hosting)
- Continuity — founder narrative (shipped, underperformed, honest failure documented)
What this is
Public read-only surface
The Graph is the internal knowledge tree of Designesy. This public surface shows the chain with real examples — but without internal paths, control-plane naming, or private doctrine. It is the provenance layer: a visitor can trace how a source became a principle, a principle became a contract, a contract became a token, a token became a verification, and a verification became shipped work.
What this is not
- Not a dependency graph or build-system diagram.
- Not a live data feed — examples are curated and versioned.
- Not a replacement for the contract or review surfaces.
- Not internal doctrine — no source paths or control-plane naming.