Frontend Design System

QuantRank Frontend Design System

Single source of truth for visual decisions on the QuantRank static site. When in doubt, copy an existing component's pattern and adjust tones — don't invent a new one.

This skill exists because of an incident (2026-05-14, PR #68): the recommendation-badge active-filter chips were rendered with the bold inline- badge styling (solid emerald-700 / red-600 fills) while the sister chips (sector / score-tier / MoS) were outlined-light (bg-50 + text-700 + ring-200). The visual family broke; the user noticed; we fixed it in a follow-up commit. Capture the rules so the next contributor doesn't repeat the miss.

Rule 0 — Tailwind only, no hex

All colors go through Tailwind tokens. No inline style={{ color: '#...' }} except for legacy Recharts components that don't accept className strings (StockHistoryChart, FairPriceBarChart). When you must use hex, source it from slate-{n} / emerald-{n} / red-{n} / indigo-{n} / amber-{n} etc.

Rule 1 — Soft palette, no saturation

Never use:

• Pure red (red-700+ saturated), pure green (green-600 browser-default)
• Pure black #000 or text-black — use text-slate-900 for "near-black"
• Pure white on dark — use text-slate-50 or text-{tone}-100

Always use the soft equivalents:

• Positive: emerald-{300,500,700} family
• Negative: red-{300,500,600} (NOT red-700; too saturated)
• Neutral / muted: slate-{200,500,700,900}
• Info / link: indigo-{500,700}
• Warning: amber-{300,500}

Rule 2 — One chip pattern: outlined-light everywhere

QuantRank uses a single chip / badge surface pattern for every metadata indicator: SectorChip, ScoreBadge tier, MoSCell bucket, RecommendationBadge, active-filter chips, and any future exchange-pill or loss-chance pill.

History (2026-05-14): An earlier iteration of this skill defined two patterns (solid inline badge vs outlined chip). User feedback found the mix visually noisy — the recommendation badge stood out from the neighboring sector pill in a way that made the row feel inconsistent. Resolution: collapse to one pattern with optional saturation gradient for hierarchy.

Canonical chip pattern

Use the shared Chip primitive (frontend/components/Chip.tsx) — do NOT hand-roll the shell string. <Chip tone={…} size="sm" dot={…}>label</Chip> renders exactly the markup below (it owns the inline-flex … rounded-sm font-medium ring-1 ring-inset shell + the gap-1.5 + the 6px dot + the size scale). RecommendationBadge / LossChanceBadge / ListingChips / Tier2EventCard's severity badge all render through it. For a bespoke surface that deviates on font-weight or text-size — ScoreBadge's font-semibold tabular-nums numeric pill, SectorChip's inline-rgb sector dot + 1px-larger xs text — compose the exported CHIP_BASE + CHIP_DOT constants and the CHIP_SIZES scale by hand instead of duplicating the literal strings (routing those through the size/dot props would emit a conflicting Tailwind utility). The primitive passes tone classes through verbatim so the globals.css soft-OKLCH override (a class allowlist) still applies — never pre-resolve a tone to hex. It expands to:

// Outlined-light chip — same shape across sector / recommendation /
// score-tier / MoS-bucket / future exchange / loss-chance.
<span className="inline-flex items-center gap-1.5 rounded-sm
                 ring-1 ring-inset px-2 py-0.5 text-xs font-medium
                 bg-emerald-50 text-emerald-800 ring-emerald-300
                 dark:bg-emerald-900/30 dark:text-emerald-100 dark:ring-emerald-800">
  <span className="inline-block h-1.5 w-1.5 rounded-full
                   bg-emerald-700 dark:bg-emerald-300" aria-hidden="true" />
  Strong Buy
</span>

Tone palette (paired light + dark: — see Rule 4):

Strong-end text uses -900 (positive strong + negative) so high-stakes labels like "Strong Buy" / "Sell" stay readable against bg-50 even on low-contrast displays. WCAG AA target ≥ 4.5:1; text-900 on bg-50 gives ~10:1.

Why paired dark: variants (see Rule 4): since Phase 3b the site ships class-strategy dark mode (darkMode: 'class' + next-themes), so dark: activates ONLY on the .dark class next-themes writes on an explicit user toggle — never on bare system prefers-color-scheme. Every chip therefore carries a paired dark: tone (strong-end → dark:text-{tone}-100, middle → dark:text-{tone}-300, over a translucent dark:bg-{tone}-900/30). A light-only surface is now the bug (near-invisible on the dark band).

Visual hierarchy via dot color (not by switching patterns)

When you need a chip to stand out within a row of chips (e.g., recommendation chip should feel "more important" than sector chip):

• Use a darker dot (emerald-700 vs emerald-500)
• Use the strong text variant (text-emerald-800 vs text-emerald-700)
• Keep the same bg-50 background — never switch to bg-700 solid

This preserves visual consistency while still ranking importance subtly.

Active filter chip variant (clickable + dismissable)

For the toolbar active-filter chip bar (below filters button), add:

• cursor: button semantics via <button type="button">
• hover:opacity-75 for hover affordance
• <span aria-hidden="true" className="opacity-60">×</span> close indicator
• Click handler that removes the filter

Same tones, same dots. Adding the × and hover state doesn't justify a new visual pattern.

Filter drawer selected-state chip

When showing "selected" vs "unselected" in the filter drawer chip group, use the same outlined-light tone for selected + bg-white text-slate-600 ring-slate-300 for unselected. NEVER use saturated solid for selected — the drawer chip should match the active-toolbar chip exactly so a user can trace "this chip is selected → it shows up there as an active filter".

Selected-state affordance (added $impeccable 2026-06-03, PR #409). The tone tint alone is too weak to read as "selected" — it vanishes in dark mode and is identical to unselected for the slate-toned options (Near fair / Hold). A selected toggle therefore ALSO carries font-semibold (vs font-medium unselected) + a 2px neutral inset ring via a raw-rgb box-shadow ([box-shadow:inset_0_0_0_2px_rgb(100,116,139)] = slate-500). Use box-shadow, NOT a Tailwind ring-*: the per-tone ring-{tone}-* is already set by the tone and globals.css remaps the emerald/rose ring tones via !important, so a layered ring utility is unreliable. slate-500 clears WCAG 1.4.11 (≥ 3:1) on the light pale tint and reads on the dark slate-800 — one value, both themes, every tone. The button also sets aria-pressed={on} so the state reaches screen readers (ring/weight is visual-only). Still NEVER a solid fill — the tone tint is unchanged. The FilterControls.toggleChipClass() helper is the single source.

⚠️ Anti-pattern (PR #68 second iteration mistake — don't repeat): solid inline badge (bg-emerald-700 text-white) next to outlined sector pill (bg-{tone}-50). User-reported the inconsistency on screenshot review. Fix: badge and pill use SAME tone family.

When chip shape changes (rare)

Pass size to the Chip primitive — the four steps live in CHIP_SIZES (Chip.tsx), so the variations are a prop, not a re-typed string:

• size="xs" for ultra-tight layouts (mobile data row, ticker prefix): px-1.5 py-0 text-[0.625rem] + dot is still rendered
• size="lg" for detail page hero header: px-3 py-1 text-base + bigger dot

The shape is the same chip — only px / py / text-{size} change.

Rule 3 — Existing token sources are the single source of truth

Three constants in frontend/lib/visual.ts are the canonical token bank. Don't duplicate or hardcode tones — import them:

The chip SHELL (not the tones) lives in frontend/components/Chip.tsx: the Chip component + CHIP_BASE / CHIP_DOT / CHIP_SIZES exports are the single source for the outlined-light shape + size scale. Pass a tone from the table above (or a sister badge's tone map) INTO <Chip tone={…}>; don't re-hardcode inline-flex … ring-1 ring-inset or the px-/text- size strings.

For recommendation-specific tones (PR 4d) — one outlined-light family, two usage CONTEXTS (not two visual patterns; see Rule 2):

• RecommendationBadge.tsx::TONES — static badge tones
• RecommendationBadge.tsx::RECOMMENDATION_CHIP_TONES — selection-state filter-chip tones
• RecommendationBadge.tsx::RECOMMENDATION_CHIP_DOTS — small dot indicator

New dimensions (e.g., future exchange-pill in PR 4i) follow the same pattern: export both an inline-badge tone map and an active-chip tone map from the badge component file. Don't put tone classes inline in RankingTable or FilterDrawer — keep them with the badge module.

Rule 4 — Paired light + dark: variants (class-strategy dark mode)

Updated 2026-06-01. This rule was the INVERSE ("light-mode only, NO dark: variants") until Phase 3b shipped a real dark mode; it was stale and is rewritten here. The original PR #70 lesson is preserved in the History block at the bottom so it isn't lost.

QuantRank ships class-strategy dark mode since Phase 3b: tailwind.config.ts sets darkMode: 'class', and next-themes (ThemeProvider attribute="class") writes a .dark class on <html> from a three-state (light / dark / system) toggle in the sidebar footer + AppShell header. frontend/app/globals.css carries a .dark block (OKLCH dark band + near-black page bg).

So every chip / badge / colored surface carries a PAIRED dark: variant. A light-only surface is now the bug (near-invisible text on the dark band) — the exact opposite of the pre-Phase-3b rule. Canonical pairing (see RecommendationBadge / LossChanceBadge / TIERS / MOS_BUCKETS):

Why this is safe now (it wasn't pre-Phase-3b): darkMode: 'class' gates dark: on the .dark class next-themes controls — NOT on bare system prefers-color-scheme. So dark: activates only when the user (or their "system" choice) actually selects dark, in lockstep with the page bg. The old invisible-label failure required darkMode: 'media' (system-gated) on a force-light page — that combination no longer exists.

Rule: ship a paired dark: variant on every new colored surface, and verify it reads on the dark band (WCAG-AA in BOTH themes). The soft-OKLCH !important overrides in globals.css remap the base utility classes per-theme via the CSS variables, so the dark: variant and the var override agree — keep both.

Pre-Phase-3b the site was force-light (:root { color-scheme: light }) with Tailwind's default darkMode: 'media'. In that combo a dark: class fired on system prefers-color-scheme: dark even though the page stayed white, so dark:text-{tone}-50 on a bg-{tone}-50 made labels vanish. Lesson 2026-05-14 (PR #70 second iteration): the recommendation badge shipped dark: variants and a system-dark user saw blank "Strong Buy" / "Sell" labels; the fix THEN was to REMOVE them. Phase 3b's switch to darkMode: 'class' + next-themes inverted the rule — dark: is now correct and required.

Rule 5 — Typography

Tabular-nums is critical for right-aligned numeric columns so the digits stack visually. Use it everywhere a number appears in a list or table cell.

Rule 6 — Spacing scale

Stick to Tailwind's 4-px scale. Common patterns:

Rounded scale (LedgerCraft — data surfaces ≤ 4px; borders carry depth, not radius):

• rounded-sm (2px) — chip BODY, buttons, inputs, search field
• rounded (4px) — cards, table containers, the stock-detail hero
• rounded-full — status dots inside chips + toggle switches ONLY
• logo containers (StockLogo) are the ONE exception to this scale — a logo is not a chip / button / card data surface, so its inline borderRadius ('4px' today) is allowed and not flagged

Rule 7 — Filter UX contracts

Filters across all dimensions follow one shape (see RankingTable.tsx for the canonical wire-up). Adding a new filter dimension requires touching all of:

1. State in RankingTable — Set<T> for multi-select; [number, number] for range
2. Persistence via frontend/lib/filter-storage.ts — bump version key when adding a new field (v1 → v2 etc.) so old saved snapshots are cleanly ignored
3. Drawer section in FilterDrawer.tsx — <label> + chip group; selected and unselected both use the outlined-light pattern (differ by ring/tint)
4. Active chip in toolbar bar in RankingTable.tsx — the same outlined-light chip
5. Filter logic in the filtered useMemo — empty-set means "pass all"
6. activeCount counter for the Filters button badge

Skip any of these and the filter is half-broken. The checklist is the test.

Rule 8 — Component placement contracts

• Recommendation badge: immediately to the right of the ticker symbol on ranking-row + detail header. Hidden when recommendation === null (legacy).
• Sector chip: in the row's chip slot (table column) or detail-page header below the rank. Always present.
• Score badge: rightmost in the data row before price columns.
• MoS bar: rightmost column, after price + fair-price.

When adding a new badge or chip, ask: "what existing slot does this most resemble?" Use the same neighbor + spacing as that slot.

Rule 9 — Disclaimer + legal posture

The global Disclaimer banner at the top of every page is the legal-safety surface. Any visual element that uses regulated-style terminology (Strong Buy, Buy, Hold, Sell, %-probability labels) is covered by the banner — no per-element popover required. Don't add disclaimer text under individual badges; it duplicates the global banner and adds visual noise.

However:

• The internal IDs in code/JSON stay neutral (bullish / lean_bullish / neutral / cautious), separate from display labels (Strong Buy / Buy / Hold / Sell). This hybrid terminology is locked 2026-05-14 in phase-4-kickoff-checklist/PLAN.md §1.

Rule 10 — Accessibility floor

• Every interactive element has either aria-label or visible text
• Badges use title= for tooltip context + aria-label for screen readers
• Buttons use semantic <button type="button"> not <div onClick>
• Color is never the sole signal — chips always pair color with a short text label or icon
• Focus rings inherit from Tailwind defaults; don't strip with focus:ring-0

Anti-patterns checklist (what NOT to do)

❌ Solid-fill badge next to an outlined chip (the PR #68 incident) — every chip/badge is the one outlined-light pattern, never a solid fill

❌ Hard-coded hex colors outside Recharts adapters style={{ color: '#0f172a' }} — use text-slate-900 instead

❌ Pure red / pure green / pure black — always use the soft palette

❌ Forgetting dark mode — every new color class needs a dark: partner

❌ Inlining tone tables in pages — keep tone constants with the component that owns the visual identity (e.g., RecommendationBadge.tsx), not scattered across RankingTable.tsx / FilterDrawer.tsx

❌ Skipping the filter checklist (Rule 7 steps 1-6) — half-wired filter

❌ Per-badge disclaimer when the global banner already covers it

❌ text-black / bg-white without dark mode partner — use text-slate-900 dark:text-slate-50 etc.

❌ Mixing FINRA-regulated and unregulated terminology in the same component (e.g., "Strong Buy" inline next to "model output, not advice" small text — pick one register)

❌ Using saturated colors for veto / distress flags — even Cautious / Sell uses red-600 not red-800. Saturation eye-fatigues users scanning a long ranking list

❌ Setting an element's color = the same token as the surface it sits on (a bg-white knob on a white panel; a dark:bg-slate-900 thumb on the slate-900 panel) — it CAMOUFLAGES, visible only via its border. Use the CONTRASTING value (dark-on-light / light-on-dark), with the border as the inverse to separate it from any same-colored fill. (#408/#409 hit this 5×.)

❌ Checking contrast only in light mode / the default state / from static code — camouflage hides in dark mode + non-default states (selected / disabled / interior-slider / the slate-toned options). Verify WCAG 1.4.11 (non-text: rings / borders / thumbs / icons ≥ 3:1 — slate-500 is the floor on a slate-800/900 dark surface) in BOTH themes, not just 1.4.3 text. A "selected/active" cue must be EXCLUSIVE to that state (a dot shown on both states signals nothing). Full retro: docs/LESSONS_LEARNED.md (2026-06-04).

Reference component checklist (for new UI work)

Before opening a UI PR, walk this checklist:

• Tones imported from lib/visual.ts or sister badge component
• Light + dark mode classes both present
• Outlined-light pattern used consistently (no solid-fill badge)
• Tabular-nums on numeric columns
• Aria labels + title attributes on interactive elements
• Filter checklist (Rule 7) walked end-to-end if adding a filter
• No hex colors outside Recharts adapter components
• Spacing follows the table in Rule 6
• Soft palette only (Rule 1)
• No per-badge legal disclaimer (Rule 9 — global banner covers it)
• npx tsc --noEmit + npx next build both clean before PR

When this skill triggers

• User says "ทำให้เหมือนกันหน่อย" / "doesn't match" / "looks different"
• Designing a new chip, badge, filter chip, or UI element
• Picking Tailwind tones for a new dimension
• Reviewing a UI PR and asking "is this consistent with the rest?"
• Onboarding a new contributor to QuantRank frontend
• Porting a design from a screenshot (Jitta-style reference, etc.)

When in doubt: read Chip.tsx (the primitive) + RecommendationBadge.tsx (component-form caller) + SectorChip.tsx (bespoke CHIP_BASE caller) + the chip rendering in RankingTable.tsx toolbar bar (a selection-state caller that still hand-rolls the shell with RECOMMENDATION_CHIP_TONES). Canonical examples of the system in action.

Companion docs

• frontend/components/Chip.tsx — the outlined-light chip primitive + CHIP_BASE / CHIP_DOT / CHIP_SIZES shell exports
• frontend/lib/visual.ts — TIERS / MOS_BUCKETS / sectorStyle tone bank
• frontend/components/RecommendationBadge.tsx — the static-badge + selection-state chip tone exports
• frontend/components/SectorChip.tsx — canonical outlined-chip implementation
• .claude/skills/phase-4/recommendation-badge/PLAN.md — design lock (Option B internal IDs / Strong Buy display hybrid)
• .claude/skills/phase-4/phase-4-kickoff-checklist/PLAN.md §1 — full terminology + design decision trail

Source: dackclup/quantrank — distributed by TomeVault.