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bvandeusen 0f80b790c7 feat(design-systems): central prose — guidance on the system, rationale on tokens
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Last piece of the architecture in #2296. The operator: "the prose doesn't have
to live as one offs, there's a central system for managing it."

Two fields, both free-form:

  design_systems.guidance   the narrative a token table cannot hold — aesthetic,
                            voice and tone, what is deliberately out of scope.
  design_tokens.rationale   WHY a token is this value, which is a different
                            question from `purpose` (what it is FOR). "Success
                            equals Moss, aligned by design" is a rationale;
                            "page bg, deepest surface" is a purpose. Rules carry
                            the first routinely and a token row had nowhere to
                            put it.

Free-form rather than a column per category, deliberately. A schema with
`voice`, `aesthetic` and `scope` columns would bake one rulebook's table of
contents into every install (rule #115), leaving the next install three empty
columns and nowhere for what it actually cares about. Both nullable: a design
system with no prose at all is complete, not a draft.

`rationale` cascades like `purpose` — deepest non-empty wins — so an app
overriding a colour keeps the family's reasoning rather than blanking it. Same
argument as `supersedes`: the override was about the value, not the meaning.

In the generated sheet the inline comment prefers `purpose` and falls back to
`rationale`, so a token carrying only the why still says something instead of
rendering bare.
2026-07-30 21:52:16 -04:00
bvandeusen 46d88f9e7e feat(design-systems): check the components against the sheet they claim to use
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"The snippets use the tags from the sheet" was a relation nobody could verify.
Now it is three checks, and all three currently fail SILENTLY in this codebase:

  unknown             `var(--x)` where the system declares no `--x`. Renders as
                      nothing at all — no error, no failing test, no visual clue
                      beyond the element quietly not being styled.
  superseded literals a value the sheet said to stop writing, paired with the
                      token to write instead. Only possible because `supersedes`
                      is declared rather than inferred.
  local definitions   custom properties a snippet mints for itself instead of
                      reusing the sheet's — the bloat a shared sheet exists to
                      prevent, where a value stops being reused and starts being
                      restated per component.

The first is not hypothetical. Writing DesignSystemsView.vue earlier in this
same session I used `--color-accent` throughout; it does not exist, and nothing
in the toolchain noticed. This check is the thing that would have.

A token that is both defined and read locally is reported ONCE, as an unknown
reference — "--btn-bg does not exist in the sheet" is the more precise statement
of the same problem, and reporting both would double-count one fact.

Literal matching is boundary-aware and case-insensitive: `#fff` must not fire
inside `#ffffff` (different colours, and a finding on the wrong one sends
someone to change correct code), while `#FFFFFF` in a rulebook has to match
`#ffffff` in a stylesheet — the same trap `normalize_hex` exists for.

Snippets with nothing to report are omitted entirely. A list of everything that
is fine is a list nobody reads twice — the same principle the auto-inject menu
and the drift panel are both built on.

Two integration mistakes fixed while wiring it: `list_snippets` returns
`(rows, total)` and caps its limit at 100, and `get_snippet` returns a Note
model rather than a dict. The list rows carry a preview, not the code, so the
check reads each full body — checking the preview would have reported on a
truncation.
2026-07-30 21:47:47 -04:00
bvandeusen b0a7d9e89b feat(design-systems): the master sheet — purpose tokens, not per-element values
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Operator's new requirement (#2299, architecture in #2296): a design system does
not just hold tokens, it generates and manages a master CSS sheet. That settles
the milestone's open "authority mechanism" question — the record is
authoritative because the stylesheet comes out of it.

**The sheet is shaped by purpose and styles no elements.** It declares custom
properties, grouped by what they mean, and contains no `.btn-primary`, no
`table`, no `input`. That is the design, not a shortcut: a sheet that styled
elements would restate the same handful of values once per element and grow with
the UI, where purpose-named values are stated once and reused. Components live
as SNIPPETS that reference these names — a surface that already exists and
already carries prose, locations, drift checks, merge and write-path recall.

A token named after an element (`--fs-button-bg`) is the smell that the two have
been mixed; a purpose name (`--fs-action-primary`) is reused across all of them.

Alongside the CSS the endpoint returns what the text cannot say for itself:
which tokens are still valueless, and which VALUES are declared under more than
one name. The second is the operator's "reuse consistent values" constraint made
checkable — and it reports rather than refuses, because a design system
legitimately aligns colours on purpose ("Success = Moss, by design") and only a
human knows which case it is.

Mode maps to selector the way the codebase already does it: base on the root
selector, every other mode layered on `[data-theme="…"]`. The root selector is a
PARAMETER — #251 recorded that a container-scoped preview cannot use `:root`, so
hardcoding it would have made the generator useless to the preview surface.

A token the rulebook names but states no value for is emitted as a commented-out
declaration IN ITS GROUP rather than dropped. Its absence is the finding, and a
comment puts that finding where the reader already is.

Values are validated, not escaped, and this is a real boundary rather than
tidiness: design systems are shareable records (rule #47), so `red; } body {
display: none` in a system shared with you would otherwise inject CSS into your
page. A value containing `{ } ; @ < >`, a comment delimiter or a newline is
REFUSED and rendered as a comment saying so — rejecting beats stripping, since a
partially-sanitised value is one the operator never wrote and the sheet's whole
claim is that it is the record.

Not in scope, and deliberately: serving this as the app's actual stylesheet.
Generating and exposing a sheet is reversible; swapping theme.css for a
generated one is not, and it should be an explicit call rather than a side
effect.
2026-07-30 21:42:08 -04:00
bvandeusen 4dc57f8ab2 feat(design-systems): import a design system out of a rulebook's prose
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Milestone #254 step 3 (#2288). Reuses #251's prose extractor as the reader and
adds the part that makes it an import rather than a list of claims.

**The join is the whole trick.** A rulebook states a design system in two places
and neither half is a token: one rule names the colours ("Obsidian #14171A (page
bg, deepest surface)"), another names the custom properties
(`--fs-obsidian/iron/slate`). The import pairs them on the word — `--fs-obsidian`
ends with `obsidian` — which is the only reason it produces something usable
instead of seventy empty names. The parenthetical becomes the token's purpose,
which is the field a bare hex could never carry.

**Prohibitions arrive as replacements, per the operator's reframe.** Rule 52
declares Parchment and forbids pure white in one breath, so the import emits
"write --fs-parchment instead of #ffffff" — the same fact stated forwards. It
attaches to the FIRST token that rule supplied a value for, not to every token
of that rule, because claiming Vellum is also the replacement for white would be
putting words in the rulebook's mouth.

**A token the rulebook names but states no readable value for is still
proposed, with an empty value.** Radius steps and type sizes are prose ("Small
4px") and nothing here parses them; inventing a parse per shape would be
guessing. The name is real and the value needs a human, so the proposal says
exactly that — and the UI leads with the COUNT of those, because an import that
hid them would look more complete than it is.

Preview is the default on both surfaces and in the UI. An import is a proposal:
rulebooks are written aspirationally and some of what they describe was never
built, so every entry carries the rule id and the sentence it came from and a
reviewer can check the claim rather than trust it.

Existing token names are never overwritten. A value already in the record was
put there deliberately — most likely correcting this importer — so a re-run
fills gaps and lists the rest as skipped, which also makes it safe to repeat.

Colours the rulebook names but never exposes as a custom property produce no
token: it never asked for one, and inventing a name would put something in the
record no rule sanctions.
2026-07-30 21:23:32 -04:00
bvandeusen 3da40abcb8 feat(design-systems): declare what to write instead, rather than what not to
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Milestone #254 step 6, first half (#2295) — and this reframes the task rather
than answering it. The operator's call:

  "in this case we should declare what should be used in place of pure white,
   it's not a prohibition it's what should be used in its place."

None of the three options on the table (a constraints record / the panel reads
both sources / negative token rows) was right, because all three kept the
prohibition as a KIND OF THING. It isn't one. "Pure white is never text" is the
shadow cast by a positive fact — text is Parchment — and a design system that
stores what things ARE has no row for a ban because it never needed one.

So `design_tokens` gains `supersedes`: the literal values this token should be
written instead of. `--color-text-on-action` supersedes `#fff` / `#ffffff`. Same
fact as the rule, stated forwards, and now actionable — a finding can say what
to write rather than only objecting.

It has to be DECLARED, not derived, and that is the crux: `#fff` and Parchment
`#E8E4D8` are different colours, so no value-matching check could ever have
connected them. That mismatch is precisely why the prohibition looked
unrepresentable until it was turned around.

`supersedes` cascades on EMPTINESS rather than on None. A child overriding a
colour says nothing about which literals it replaces, and blanking the family's
declaration there would silently disarm the check for every app that customises
the token — while a child that states its own list replaces it wholesale.

Two things this deliberately does NOT do:

  - It does not feed the drift panel. Superseded literals live in component CSS,
    which `designDrift.ts` cannot see and already documents as a blind spot.
    This is input for the source lint (#2277). Declaring it with nothing
    consuming it yet is honest; wiring it to a panel that cannot check it would
    not be.
  - It does not remove the panel's `prohibited_color` arm yet — that happens
    when the panel is repointed at a resolved system, which needs #2288 first.

The declaration also exposes a missing token: most of the 67 hardcoded
`color: #fff` (#2275) are text on a coloured action button, and the system has
no token for that role at all. Every view hardcodes it. Declaring the token that
was never there is the first real output of the operator's framing.
2026-07-30 21:16:45 -04:00
bvandeusen 143b968c5d feat(design-systems): REST + MCP surfaces, at parity
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Milestone #254 step 4 (#2290). Eleven capabilities, both surfaces, one service.

Design systems are owner-scoped top-level records rather than project-scoped
ones, so these do not nest under /api/projects/ the way systems do —
routes/rulebooks.py was the closer shape. The one exception is the project
pointer, which is genuinely about a project: PUT /api/projects/<id>/design-system,
PUT rather than PATCH because clearing it is a first-class outcome and not an
omission.

`/resolved` and `/tokens` are deliberately separate endpoints. One answers "what
does this system CHANGE", the other "what does it end up BEING", and a system
that overrides nothing has an empty token list and a full resolved set. Shipping
only one would have made the other a client-side computation of exactly the kind
the record model exists to remove.

ResolvedToken.to_dict carries the SHADOWED contributions, not just the winner.
Dropping them at the serialisation boundary would have discarded the one thing
step 2 was built to preserve, and it would have been invisible — the payload
still looks complete.

Three sentinel translations on the MCP side, each tested, because an agent
cannot omit an argument and a wrong mapping here is silent:

  - parent_id: 0 = unchanged, -1 = clear (become a family system), positive =
    set. Renaming a system must not silently re-root it.
  - order_index: -1 = unchanged, since 0 is a valid position.
  - value_by_mode: guarded on `is not None`, not truthiness, so `{}` can strip
    every mode from a token instead of being unreachable.

DesignSystemCycle maps to 400 on REST and to a ValueError carrying the message
on MCP — kept apart from 404 throughout. An agent told "not found" retries the
same call; one told what the loop is can fix it.

Two structural guards beyond the parity list: every endpoint must be reachable
on the app (catching a decorator copied without its path, where the second
handler silently never runs), and every public coroutine in the tools module
must be registered (a tool written but never registered is invisible to an
agent, and nothing else would notice).
2026-07-30 17:09:25 -04:00