taste:
id: rail-yard-devtools
name: Rail Yard — Dev tools
summary: >-
A compact developer interface characterized by warm terracotta accents, tight-radius surfaces,
and high-density technical interfaces.
app_type: WEB_APP
project_types:
- saas
styles:
- technical
- warm
industry: software
aesthetics:
- technical
- warm
tags:
- technical
- warm
theme:
default_mode: LIGHT_MODE
palette_note: >-
Only the 500 anchor is provided per palette; the full 17-step ramp (100-900) is derived from
it by the system's heuristic shade tool.
palettes:
neutral:
'500': '#808080'
description: Warm slate neutral derived from the devtools canvas.
brand:
'500': '#E56E25'
description: Vivid warm terracotta orange primary brand color.
danger:
'500': '#D32F2F'
warning:
'500': '#FFC107'
success:
'500': '#4CAF50'
info:
'500': '#1976D2'
accent:
'500': '#FFC107'
colors:
background:
light: '#F0F2F5'
dark: neutral/900
foreground:
light: '#1A1A1A'
dark: neutral/100
card:
light: '#FFFFFF'
dark: neutral/850
card-foreground:
light: '#1A1A1A'
dark: neutral/100
popover:
light: '#FFFFFF'
dark: neutral/850
popover-foreground:
light: '#1A1A1A'
dark: neutral/100
primary:
light: '#A3430A'
dark: brand/450
primary-foreground:
light: '#FFFFFF'
dark: '#1A1A1A'
secondary:
light: neutral/100
dark: neutral/800
secondary-foreground:
light: neutral/800
dark: neutral/100
muted:
light: neutral/100
dark: neutral/800
muted-foreground:
light: '#505C6E'
dark: neutral/300
accent:
light: brand/150
dark: neutral/800
accent-foreground:
light: brand/700
dark: neutral/100
destructive:
light: '#C62828'
dark: danger/600
destructive-foreground:
light: '#FFFFFF'
dark: '#FFFFFF'
border:
light: '#D3D8DF'
dark: neutral/750
input:
light: '#D3D8DF'
dark: neutral/750
ring:
light: brand/500
dark: brand/450
chart-1:
light: brand/500
dark: brand/500
chart-2:
light: success/500
dark: success/500
chart-3:
light: warning/500
dark: warning/500
chart-4:
light: info/500
dark: info/500
chart-5:
light: neutral/600
dark: neutral/400
sidebar:
light: '#FFFFFF'
dark: neutral/900
sidebar-foreground:
light: '#1A1A1A'
dark: neutral/100
sidebar-primary:
light: '#A3430A'
dark: brand/500
sidebar-primary-foreground:
light: '#FFFFFF'
dark: '#1A1A1A'
sidebar-accent:
light: brand/100
dark: neutral/800
sidebar-accent-foreground:
light: brand/700
dark: neutral/100
sidebar-border:
light: '#D3D8DF'
dark: neutral/800
sidebar-ring:
light: brand/500
dark: brand/450
radius:
base:
value: 0.75rem
description: Standard lg radius mapping to 12px; controls scale down to md (6px) and sm (3px).
shadows:
xs:
value: 0 1px 2px rgba(0,0,0,0.05)
sm:
value: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.05) 0px 1px 3px 0px
md:
value: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.08) 0px 2px 8px 0px
lg:
value: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.05) 0px 2px 8px 0px
xl:
value: rgba(229, 110, 37, 0.3) 0px 4px 10px 0px
gradients:
brand_wash:
value: 'linear-gradient(135deg, #E56E25 0%, #CA5B17 100%)'
fonts:
sans:
family: Inter
description: Technical interface body font
display:
family: Space Grotesk
description: Geometric developer brand headings
mono:
family: JetBrains Mono
description: High-legibility monospaced data and code snippets
typography:
hero:
font: display
size_px: 28
line_height_px: 45
weight: 700
letter_spacing_em: 0
transform: none
title:
font: display
size_px: 22
line_height_px: 35
weight: 700
letter_spacing_em: 0
transform: none
heading:
font: display
size_px: 18
line_height_px: 29
weight: 600
letter_spacing_em: 0
transform: none
body:
font: sans
size_px: 12
line_height_px: 18
weight: 400
letter_spacing_em: 0
transform: none
caption:
font: sans
size_px: 11
line_height_px: 15
weight: 400
letter_spacing_em: 0
transform: none
label:
font: sans
size_px: 14
line_height_px: 17
weight: 600
letter_spacing_em: 0
transform: none
overline:
font: sans
size_px: 10
line_height_px: 14
weight: 700
letter_spacing_em: 0.05
transform: uppercase
style_guidelines:
visual_direction:
title: Visual Direction
recommendations:
- >-
Combine compact, raw grotesque headings with tight, razor-sharp card elements to create a
highly-structured technical layout.
- >-
Position energetic terracotta orange accents strictly at high-impact interaction anchors
to pull focus instantly.
hierarchy:
title: Hierarchy
recommendations:
- >-
Assign neutral secondary labels to secondary meta-actions to avoid visually overpowering
primary status markers.
- >-
Reserve high-chroma text fills only for critical priority symbols and system error
statuses.
layout:
title: Layout
recommendations:
- >-
Deploy compact structures with narrow padding alignments to maximize the vertical and
horizontal density of technical information.
- >-
Align adjacent cards symmetrically using strict grid spacing of 15px to maintain
system-wide structural coherence.
components:
title: Components
recommendations:
- Style primary action buttons to exactly 38px in height with a strict 5px corner radius.
- >-
Render data grids with strict horizontal separators, high-contrast column labels, and
rapid action triggers.
- >-
Enforce strong focus rings on interactive fields to offer immediate feedback during rapid
keyboard workflows.
typography:
title: Typography
recommendations:
- >-
Render technical descriptions, parameters, and form choices in Inter for clean, legible
reading.
- >-
Restrict monospaced typefaces exclusively to numeric counts, timestamps, hashes, and
configuration properties.
color_and_effects:
title: Color & Effects
recommendations:
- Accentuate important modals and active elements using the signature orange drop shadow.
- >-
Ground the light-mode canvas with a soft grey background to reduce developer eye fatigue
during prolonged sessions.
- >-
Keep color overlays strictly solid and minimal, skipping heavy gradients to guarantee
optimal contrast scores.
quality_bar:
title: Quality Bar
checks:
- id: contrast-status-labels
label: Contrast Status Labels
recommendation: >-
All status and priority chips must maintain a minimum 4.5:1 contrast ratio against their
colored backings.
- id: density-preservation
label: Density Preservation
recommendation: Maintain compact paddings and thin 1px boundaries to avoid diluting screen density.
- id: button-border-radius
label: Button Border Radius
recommendation: >-
All interactive buttons must keep a strict 5px corner radius, matching the physical
measurements.
- id: monospaced-data-alignment
label: Monospaced Data Alignment
recommendation: >-
Hash strings, logs, timestamps, and metric counts must use monospaced typography for easy
column scanning.
- id: focus-state-visibility
label: Focus State Visibility
recommendation: >-
All inputs and tabs must show a highly visible brand-colored outline when focused via
keyboard navigation.
active_remix:
mode: light
brand: '#E56E25'
display_font: Space Grotesk
shape: system
depth: system
spacing: system
spacing_value: null
craft: >
# Craft (universal core + conditional craft)
How to apply this design system well. These rules contain no brand look of their own — all
per-system character comes from the tokens and taste notes above; this section only governs
how they are composed. **Precedence:** the design system above is the authority on how things
look — where its own notes conflict with a rule here, the design system wins. And the user's
request is the authority on what the screen IS — notes above that describe the source
product's screens (workspaces, dashboards, panels) are its aesthetic heritage, not an
instruction to build that kind of screen.
## Universal — applies to every screen (screen-agnostic craft)
- **Surface definition.** Every container is visually separable from what it sits on — at least
one
honest edge cue: a hairline border, a ≥4% tonal step from its parent, or a real shadow. Never a card
whose fill matches its section with no border; never nested surfaces that dissolve together.
- **Accent discipline.** The brand/primary color is a scalpel, not paint: spend it on the primary
action, the active/selected/focused state, and at most **one** brand or data highlight per screen.
Everything else rides neutral background / card / muted / border tokens. A screen flooded with brand
color reads unfinished, not bold.
- **Restraint ledger.** Beauty is also what you don't do: at most one glow and two gradient
directions
screen-wide; decoration only where content doesn't reach; no ornament between a heading and its own
action. Every decorative element must answer "what does this make clearer or more felt?" — if the
answer is "nothing," remove it.
- **Type with intent.** The measured faces/scale are fixed; character comes from *usage*, and the
move
must fit the surface — a marketing page earns a dramatic display move; a working screen earns a
crisp, tight, legible hierarchy at UI scale (display-hero type on a dense tool is a smell). Chrome
and wayfinding are never display type; data numerals are tabular (mono or sans), never the
decorative face. Headings stay roman — italics live as emphasis inside running text, not as
display styling (unless the system's own type says otherwise).
- **Anti-default.** If the screen could pass for a generic template with the colors swapped, it is
not
done. Make the brand unmistakable through the accent's *use*, the type, the radius + density, and
**one** signature detail — never by importing another surface's clichés.
- **Honest content.** Never invent proof — no made-up adoption counts, growth percentages,
testimonials, client logos, or awards. Use the user's real content, a neutral placeholder, or
leave the element out and let the layout carry it. Never hand-draw fake browser bars, phone
frames, or editor chrome around content — show the content itself, or nothing.
- **Interaction integrity.** Buttons, links, tabs, and nav labels never wrap to two lines; display
headlines wrap cleanly, never clipping mid-word; nothing overflows horizontally at any width;
keyboard focus gets an instant, clearly visible ring.
- **Token fidelity.** Every design value comes from a token: colors, radii, shadows, and fonts
from
the system's variables — never a literal hex, a hand-picked shadow, or a substitute font. For a
translucent or composited value (a scrim, a glow, a hairline over a fill), derive it from a token
(an opacity modifier or color-mix), never a literal rgba. If the system specifies square corners and
a hard shadow, the screen shows square corners and that hard shadow — not a rounded, soft substitute.
## Conditional — apply ONLY the layer that matches the screen the user asked for
**First name the screen honestly from the user's prompt.** Then apply the matching guidance. Do
not
cross layers, and **do not add elements from a layer the screen doesn't call for** — a screen that
is
not a data view must not sprout KPI tiles, charts, filter bars, or data tables to satisfy a
template.
- **If it's a data / dashboard / admin / table view:** density done well (comfortable rows, tight
control clusters, one spacing rhythm); a populated working state (real rows/cards, not empty feature
boxes); tables with aligned tabular numerals, status as badges, row hover, one visible selected row,
and control states that agree with the data shown. KPI tiles, *if the screen has them*, are
value + label + delta. **At most one** chart, of a real metric for this domain, token-colored and
axis-labeled — never a decorative sine wave or filler sparkline. Exactly one unambiguous primary
action.
- **If it's a focused task / tool / player / capture / monitor / form / wizard (not a data
view):**
the screen's real job dominates the frame; chrome recedes. Honor the screen's own nature — a player
looks like a player, a monitor like a monitor, a form like a form — with the design system's color,
type, radius, and depth applied to *those* elements. **No dashboard furniture**: no KPI tiles, no
charts, no data tables, no filter chrome unless the task itself is about that data. Real-time or
safety-critical readouts get calm, unambiguous, high-legibility treatment over decoration.
- **If it's a marketing / landing surface:** editorial art direction belongs here — section rhythm
(modulate surface temperature, density, and scale; one oversized moment; at least one full-bleed
band) and considered visual treatments. Never put this on a working app screen.
- **Mobile:** follow the platform's native idioms for the screen's type (e.g. an app screen:
compact
top bar, one focused column, a bottom tab bar, ≥44px targets, safe areas) — the same conditional
rules above still decide what content belongs.
## Imagery (universal)
- **Imagery is content, not decoration** on working screens: images are data (covers, products,
avatars, places) in purposeful containers, one consistent treatment across siblings — never a lone
photo floating in a box, never marketing's decorative fades on a work screen. When a moment needs
atmosphere, build it from the token system (tinted panels, token gradients, geometry).
