Portal Branding

Konnect Dev Portal page branding

Goal

Reproduce a brand or an existing website's look on Dev Portal MDC pages: colors, fonts, imagery, and spacing, through MDC components and page-level styling. Work in MDC page files, locally or in a repo. Do not push destructive changes to a live portal through the Konnect API unless the user explicitly asks.

Clarify First

Ask two or three high-impact questions, each with a default to confirm; do not interrogate:

• source to match: a URL or short brand description
• target page or pages
• which details must be exact, which can be approximate
• light or dark base

Tool Selection

• Author, format, validate, and preview MDC with the portal-page-design toolchain, which uses the Konnect MCP server for verified components, design tokens, validation, and preview. This skill adds the brand-specific steps below.
• If the MCP server is not connected, recommend connecting it. Without it there is no preview or parity loop: work from general MDC knowledge and the user's files, ask them to preview in the Portal Editor, and say plainly the result is less reliable.
• Capturing the source and comparing results need a browser. If no browser automation (Playwright or an agent browser) is available, have the user install one first.
• If a local preview extension is available, use it for live preview while editing.

Workflow

1. Confirm the source (URL or brand cues) and target MDC page.
2. Capture the brand cues (see Capture the brand).
3. Build the look with components and page-level styling (see Apply the brand).
4. Preview and compare to the source across widths, then iterate (see Parity loop).
5. Check contrast against every background.
6. Report what matched; for anything the page cannot express, offer a concrete alternative, not a silent miss.

Capture the brand

Aim for a small set of concrete cues, not a pile of screenshots:

1. Brand and accent colors: dominant non-neutral colors on primary buttons, links, and highlights. Record hex.
2. Base tone: light or dark.
3. Typography: heading, body, and monospace fonts, plus the weights used.
4. Imagery: logos, icons, and hero images with source URLs. Prefer SVG.
5. Spacing and shape: dense or airy, plus corner-radius and border feel.

Screenshot the source with Playwright at desktop and mobile widths and keep it open beside your work. Match the given source; do not substitute a default brand.

Apply the brand

Two levers:

• Portal theme: anything portal-wide (brand color, fonts, layout, logo, favicon), set through the MCP server's customization operations. The primary token family derives from the theme's primary color, so setting it once applies the brand consistently. Change the theme only when the user asks.
• Page-level styling: one-page shades and effects beyond the primary palette, such as a full-width hero background.

For one page, use a component's dedicated appearance props (background-color, padding, border, border-radius) and inline span styles, for example [text]{ style="color:#6f28ff;" }. Prefer dedicated props over the catch-all styles prop, which is only for what props cannot express (a gradient background).

Set fonts portal-wide through the theme so every page matches; for a one-page exception, set font-family on component style props with a fallback stack.

Parity loop

Run this only with a real portal and a configured token; without them there is no rendered preview and no parity loop, so say so and stop.

1. Format and validate the MDC, look up the target portal's origin (its canonical or default domain), and generate a preview through the MCP server.
2. Set the viewport before opening the URL, wait for full hydration (network idle, no pending animations), then screenshot the preview and source at the same widths (mobile, tablet, desktop).
3. Compare in order: base tone, brand colors, fonts, spacing and shape, then fine detail.
4. Fix the largest visible gap first, then repeat. Drive changes from the screenshots, not assumptions.

Editing an existing page: first screenshot the live page as a "before" at each width, then compare against the "after."

Preview URLs are single-use and time-limited: regenerate only when the MDC changes; once loaded, resize the browser in place to test widths.

The preview uses the target portal's theme, so --kui-*-primary surfaces show that portal's brand color, not the source's. To judge brand parity, either set the portal's primary color in the theme first, or use explicit hex on brand-critical surfaces so the preview is theme-independent.

Contrast: check brand color against its background on buttons and links, and body text against its background. Meet WCAG AA: 4.5:1 for normal text, 3:1 for large text. If the true brand color fails, use it for large surfaces and pick a contrast-safe variant for text.

When an element has no page equivalent, do not drop it silently: offer the closest approximation, or state plainly that the page cannot express the effect.

Stop when tone, colors, fonts, and imagery match and the remaining differences are cosmetic and below the user's fidelity bar. Report residual differences rather than chasing pixels.

Dev Portal Gotchas

• Pull --kui-* values from the server's design tokens, not memory; use explicit hex only for shades beyond the primary palette.
• Logo, favicon, and API images have dedicated MCP upload operations. There is no uploader for arbitrary inline content images; hotlink those over HTTPS with an image component, or embed SVG inline.
• The portal's internal class names are not a stable contract; use component props and inline styles.
• Style only what the brand needs, with the smallest set of theme settings and styles.

Validation Checklist

• source and target pages named
• colors, fonts, imagery, and spacing applied
• images use the right upload path or hotlink/SVG
• WCAG AA contrast on every background
• parity confirmed via screenshot comparison
• work stayed in MDC page files
• unmatched elements and their alternatives noted

Handoffs

• portal-page-design for page structure and component choice.
• technical-writing for page wording.
• terraform-konnect or kongctl-declarative to encode pages as code.
• Portal-wide customization (theme, navigation menus, custom domain, page visibility): use the MCP server's portal customization operations directly; no page-scoped skill here owns it.
• konnect-api-publish or konnect-app-auth when the real issue is API visibility, publication, or developer application auth.