Color

color

!checklist init ${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR} --force

An atelier (a craftsman's studio) is named for the discipline of the hand — careful, deliberate, derived. color is the color & light lens of the atelier suite: where the other skills decide what is true and what is composed, color decides what every hue, tone, and value actually is — and makes that a system, not a scatter of hand-picked hexes. Its product is a tokenized color system: a perceptual neutral ramp with a chosen temperature, semantic role tokens mapped to that ramp, a correctly engineered dark theme, contrast verified at design time, and a data-viz scale engineered for perceptual uniformity and colorblind safety — each committed before components consume it. It runs across gated stages and will not advance past a GATE until the checklist tool clears it — order enforced, substance yours.

The governing fact: color coherence is not a matter of taste applied per component — it is a matter of deriving every value from a small, decided system. The same blue typed as #2563eb in one component and #2f6ae0 in another, a neutral gray that is just #888888, a dark mode that runs filter: invert(), a data viz that uses a stock rainbow — each is a hand-picked value, and their sum is the perceptual incoherence the eye reads as "off" without being able to name it. The craft is the same subtraction the suite preaches everywhere: define a small system (one perceptual space, one neutral temperature, a handful of semantic roles, one contrast target), then derive every concrete value from it. Do that and two things happen — the palette becomes coherent (a thousand component colors agree because they came from ten tokens), and it becomes evolvable (dark mode, re-theme, or rebrand by remapping the alias layer, not finding-and-replacing scattered hex).

This is where the agent era bites:

• The agent picks plausible-but-incoherent values and feels no wrongness. It will emit oklch(0.62 0.18 250) as a primary blue and oklch(0.60 0.17 248) for success green — close enough to look intentional, wrong enough to read as undesigned. It has no nervous system to flinch at a secondary text color that fails WCAG. The values must come from a decided system, not per-call taste.
• The agent reaches for the cheap trick. Dark mode by filter: invert(), a rainbow palette for a data series, color: gray for disabled, border-color: #ccc per component. Each is the move that looks like the craft and isn't.
• The agent maintains two sources of truth without noticing. It defines --color-primary: oklch(0.62 0.18 250) in CSS and then hardcodes color: '#2563eb' in a React inline style — two palettes, one in each language, that will silently drift. The design system is itself state; it gets one source of truth (see atelier:systems).

Speak the user's language. The decisions are the user's — which neutral temperature (warm / cool / brand-tinted), which accent hue, what the contrast targets are, whether the surface skews editorial or product. Read their fluency and gloss a term on first use (perceptual color / oklch, neutral ramp, semantic token, alias layer, contrast ratio / APCA Lc, colorblind-safe / CVD). A token system the user can't read is a palette imposed, not shared.

The reference library

The depth lives in references/. Open each when a stage sends you there — not all upfront.

• references/color-spaces-and-neutrals.md — why oklch (perceptual uniformity, independent hue rotation, L is a perceptual quantity), the color-space decision tree, gamut and fallbacks, the neutral ramp with a temperature, surface and endpoint strategy.
• references/oklch-palette-recipes.md — the full 8-step recipe: accent ramp (L slope, C hump), state derivation (relative color), semantic color family (same L/C, differ only in H), three-layer token architecture, dark ramp derivation (raise L, drop C, remap alias), contrast calibration.
• references/contrast-and-bw.md — why not pure black/white (halation, eye fatigue), contrast as a hierarchy (primary / secondary / tertiary / disabled), WCAG 2 as the legal floor (4.5:1 / 3:1 / 3:1), APCA Lc as the perceptually correct model (Lc bound to size × weight), non-text contrast (borders, icons, focus rings), colorblindness, the comfort band.
• references/dark-theme-engineering.md — dark is a re-tuned ramp (not invert): deep-gray base, elevation by lighter surface, off-white text, de-saturated accents. Token architecture, three-state switching (light/dark/system), FOUC prevention, persistence + cross-tab sync, transition traps, the full adaptation checklist (shadows, images, gradients, charts, native controls), governance.
• references/data-viz-color.md — the three palette types (categorical / sequential / diverging), perceptual uniformity (rainbow banned, Viridis, OKLCH monotonic ramp), colorblind-safe construction (Okabe-Ito, redundant encoding), categorical cap (~6–8), sequential and diverging construction, gray as the most important color, contrast in charts, dark chart recoloring, tokenizing the viz palette.

The arc is one perceptual color system. Four stages — ramp & roles · dark ramp · contrast · data-viz — turn a scatter of hexes into a coherent, accessible, evolvable palette: STAGE 0 commits the neutral ramp and semantic tokens before any component touches a color; STAGE 1 re-tunes that ramp for dark without inversion; STAGE 2 verifies every text/background pair at design time; STAGE 3 builds the data-viz scale with rigor. color gates all four; it runs before components are colored and its token system is what atelier:systems later governs as a living artifact.

Greenfield or retrofit? Decide the entry, not a new stage. Most real work is not a blank canvas — it is a codebase thick with #3B82F6, border: 1px solid #e5e7eb, color: rgba(0,0,0,0.45), and a dark mode toggle that sets background: #1a1a1a inline. The four stages are the same; only the entrance differs. If starting clean, walk STAGE 0→3 in order. If a surface already exists, do one pass first: inventory the ad-hoc color values — every magic hex, every inline color, every duplicate — and cluster them into the systems the stages will own (neutrals · accent · semantics · contrast targets · viz palette). The inventory is the raw material each gate consumes, not a deliverable to perfect. Bring the inventory to STAGE 0 and the gates run unchanged.

STAGE 0 — Perceptual ramp & semantic roles

Open references/color-spaces-and-neutrals.md and references/oklch-palette-recipes.md. Build the color system before coloring any component.

• Build in oklch, as tokens. Define the system in oklch (lightness and chroma independent, steps perceptually even), not scattered hex: a neutral ramp (~10–12 steps, 50…950) built on purpose (a chosen temperature/hue, not pure C=0 gray), plus an accent ramp (L slope + C hump, peak at 500–600), plus the four semantic colors — all using the same L and near-same C, differing only in H, so they read as one family.
• Semantic role tokens (the alias layer). Map semantic aliases (--color-text-primary, --color-surface, --color-border, --color-primary, --color-success-bg, …) onto the ramp steps. Components consume only the alias layer — never a raw ramp step, never a hex. Theme switch = edit the alias mapping; component code unchanged. The three-layer architecture: raw/ramp → semantic/alias → component.
• State derivation by formula. hover: oklch(from var(--accent) calc(l - 0.04) c h) — same hue, L delta. Never a fresh color per state. disabled: drop C toward neutral + raise L. focus: base color for the dual ring (verify contrast).
• The yellow problem. Warning/amber lives at H≈70–80 (not yellow H≈95) and needs L pressed to ≈0.55 when used as text — yellow at the same L as the other semantics reads harder and can fail contrast. Encode this into the warning semantic token, not patched later.

GATE — clear before DARK

1. checklist check ramp-and-roles neutral-ramp-in-oklch-with-temperature
2. checklist check ramp-and-roles accent-and-semantic-family-as-tokens
3. checklist verify ramp-and-roles

STAGE 1 — Dark as a re-tuned ramp

Open references/dark-theme-engineering.md. Dark mode is a design decision, not a filter.

• Dark is not invert. Dark base ≈ oklch(0.14 0.008 250) (deep gray, not #000); text ≈ oklch(0.88 0.006 250) (off-white, not #fff). Elevation = lighter surface per layer (not deeper shadow — shadows nearly vanish on dark). Accents: raise L to ~0.70–0.75, drop C ~20–30% (saturated mid-L colors vibrate on dark backgrounds).
• Remap the alias layer, not the ramp. The raw ramp stays fixed; the alias tokens (--color-surface, --color-text-primary, --color-primary, …) get different ramp steps assigned in the [data-theme="dark"] scope (or @media (prefers-color-scheme: dark)). Light mode uses accent-600 as a link; dark mode uses accent-300/400. This is alias remapping, not color inversion.
• Three-state switching (light / dark / system) with a zero-JS baseline (@media redefines tokens) and a [data-theme] override. color-scheme: light dark — almost always forgotten; tells the browser to render native form controls and scrollbars per theme.
• FOUC prevention. Blocking inline script in <head> reads localStorage and sets [data-theme] before first paint. SSR: store theme preference in a cookie the server reads for a correct first paint.
• Full adaptation checklist. Colors alone are not enough — also adapt: shadows (top-edge highlight replaces depth shadow), images (dark variants, transparent PNG fringe), gradients (re-tuned), charts (recolored, lighter gridlines), code highlighting, logo (two versions), <meta name="theme-color">, native controls via color-scheme.

GATE — clear before CONTRAST

1. checklist check dark-ramp dark-ramp-re-tuned-not-inverted
2. checklist check dark-ramp three-state-switching-and-fouc
3. checklist verify dark-ramp

STAGE 2 — Contrast at design time

Open references/contrast-and-bw.md. Contrast is a design decision, not an audit finding.

• Never pure black on pure white. Text-black: oklch(0.20 0.010 250) (L≈0.15–0.25, not #000); large bg: off-white (L≈0.97–0.99, not #fff). Both carry the neutral hue tint — even black and white are branded.
• Contrast is a hierarchy, not one number. Map roles to neutral steps: primary text ~12–16:1 / Lc 90 · secondary text ~7:1 / Lc 75 · tertiary ~4.5:1 / Lc 60 · placeholder/disabled ~3:1 (exempt, not invisible). The single most common failure: secondary text dialed to pale gray "for elegance" — an aesthetic crutch and usually a WCAG failure.
• WCAG 2 is the legal floor; APCA is the perceptually correct model. WCAG 2: body 4.5:1, large (≥24px or ≥18.66px bold) 3:1, UI components/graphics 3:1 (SC 1.4.11). APCA Lc is bound to size × weight — fine text needs much higher Lc than large-bold text; this is the precision model, especially for dark mode where WCAG 2 systematically overstates contrast (ignores polarity).
• Non-text contrast is not optional. Input borders, icons, focus rings, chart marks, status indicators: ≥3:1 against adjacent color (SC 1.4.11). Agents make borders too pale — inputs vanish. Focus rings: dual ring, real contrast.
• Verify at design time in the token system. Calibrate the ramp as pairs (step-900 on step-50 for primary text, step-700 on step-50 for secondary, …) so contrast is structural, not patched per component. If a pair fails, move which step the alias points to — never nudge a raw ramp value to pass one test.
• Colorblindness: luminance is the robust channel. ~8% of men. WCAG 1.4.1: never convey information by color alone. Luminance contrast survives most CVD; hue difference does not. Test with deutan/protan/tritan simulators.

GATE — clear before DATA-VIZ

1. checklist check contrast contrast-hierarchy-verified-at-design-time
2. checklist check contrast non-text-contrast-and-cvd
3. checklist verify contrast

STAGE 3 — Data-viz & semantic color

Open references/data-viz-color.md. Data visualization has its own color rigor; UI palette rules do not transfer.

• Identify the palette type first. Three types, each a different construction: categorical (unordered, max hue separation at near-equal lightness, cap ~6–8); sequential (ordered, monotonic lightness ramp, single hue or multi-hue if lightness stays monotonic); diverging (meaningful midpoint, two sequential ramps meeting at a light/neutral midpoint — not a third saturated color). Decision tree: ordered? no → categorical. yes + meaningful midpoint → diverging. yes + one direction → sequential.
• Rainbow is banned. Not perceptually uniform, not CVD-safe, the bright-yellow band creates false boundaries. Use Viridis / Magma / Inferno / Plasma / Cividis, or an OKLCH monotonic ramp (fix H, push L monotonically, adjust C). Lightness is the magnitude channel — encode quantity with lightness, not hue.
• Colorblind-safe by construction, not by luck. Okabe-Ito 8-color is the categorical gold standard. Diverging: avoid red-green, use blue-orange / blue-red / purple-green. Redundant encoding (shape, pattern, texture, direct label) alongside color — color alone never carries meaning.
• Gray is the most important color. Gray out everything un-emphasized; spend color only on signal. Direct labels (label colored like the line it names) beat legends.
• Tokenize the viz palette. --viz-categorical-1 through --viz-categorical-8, --viz-sequential-{1..9}, --viz-diverging-{low|mid|high} — consistent product-wide, so the same series always wears the same color. Chart marks vs plot background: ≥3:1 (SC 1.4.11). On dark: recolor (raise L, drop C), do not invert.
• Accessibility beyond CVD. Provide a text alternative or data table — color is invisible to screen readers; the data must be obtainable non-visually. Mark size matters; do not encode meaning by color alone.

FINAL GATE

1. checklist check data-viz data-viz-palette-perceptually-uniform-cvd-safe-and-tokenized
2. checklist verify data-viz
3. checklist show — confirm all four stages passed.
4. checklist done — clear this run's state.

Instruments — the coherence probe

The gates ask you to verify the system; the agent has no nervous system to feel where a real surface violates it. probes/color-coherence.mjs is the prosthetic for the encodable layer: point it at a rendered surface and it reads every visible element's computed color and rendered area, converts to OKLCH, and flags the off-system facts this lens forbids — pure black / pure white, color-temperature breaks, a large off-ramp surface, near-duplicate hand-picked accents, and text below the contrast floor.

node "${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/probes/color-coherence.mjs" http://localhost:5173/   # or ./index.html

Run it as a pre-check at STAGE 0 (retrofit: inventory what's actually on screen) and again before the contrast gate. It flags the fact; you judge intent — a large near-black panel on a warm page may be a mistake, or a deliberate inversion that should be re-tuned into the system as a warm dark-elevation token. The probe makes the choice explicit; the GATE is still yours. For a rigorous a11y contrast audit, defer to axe-core/Lighthouse; the probe's unique value is the system-level checks those tools lack. See probes/README.md.

The thread through all of it

color is the suite's perceptual conscience — the place where the claim that the agent picks plausible-but-incoherent values finally gets a gate. It runs before any component is colored, and its token system is what atelier:systems later governs as a living artifact and what atelier:canon uses as a quantified commitment ("contrast target: Lc 75 on body text, Lc 60 on headings, dark base L≈0.14"). The through-line is the suite's own — push correctness into structure — applied to color: a value derived from a system can't drift the way a hand-picked one can, so palette coherence becomes structural rather than maintained by vigilance. The line that keeps color honest inside a suite that says "the correct isn't in a document": the document holds the encodable technique (how oklch works, how APCA Lc is bound to size and weight, how a CVD-safe categorical palette is constructed); the taste — which temperature, which accent hue, what the contrast hierarchy actually is — stays a gate the user clears. Blur that line and the skill becomes a recipe book; hold it and it stays a lens.

Anti-patterns (use as a pre-flight checklist)

• Magic hex in components — any color literal that isn't a token reference is entropy. The first place coherence dies is color: #2563eb in a button file and background: #2f6ae0 in a badge.
• Pure gray neutrals (C=0) — pure gray reads "default, lifeless." Pick a temperature (warm H≈60–80 or cool H≈250), commit it, hold it across the whole ramp.
• Dark mode by filter: invert() — it's a re-tuned ramp (deep gray base, off-white text, de-saturated accents, elevation by lighter surface), not a filter.
• Contrast verified after the fact — calibrate the ramp as pairs at design time; if a pair fails, move which alias step it points to, don't patch a single component.
• Secondary text dialed to pale gray "for elegance" — the most common WCAG failure. Low-contrast gray text is the universal designer bug.
• Forgotten non-text contrast — input borders, icons, focus rings, chart marks need ≥3:1 (SC 1.4.11).
• Semantic colors that don't form a family — each semantic at its own random saturation. Same L, near-same C, differ only in H — that is one family.
• Warning yellow at standard L — yellow/green reads brighter at a given oklch L; push warning to amber (H≈70–80) and press L to ≈0.55 for text.
• States as fresh colors — hover/active/focus/disabled are L deltas on the same hue, computed by formula, not four new hexes.
• The palette in two languages — --color-primary in CSS and primaryColor: '#2563eb' in a JS config are two sources of truth that will drift; pick one and derive the other (see atelier:systems).
• Rainbow for data-viz — not perceptually uniform, not CVD-safe. Banned. Use Viridis / Okabe-Ito / an OKLCH monotonic ramp.
• Color alone carrying meaning in a chart — luminance is the robust channel; add redundant encoding (shape, pattern, label) so CVD users and screen readers can use the data.
• Dark charts by inversion — recolor for dark (raise L, drop C, lighten gridlines); do not invert.
• Skipping a GATE — every color value must trace to a token, every token to a ramp step, every ramp step to the decided system. If it doesn't trace, you picked it by hand.