Purrgrammer Fragua Design

Fragua design language

Clarity through restraint — data is the decoration, structure is the grid, motion indicates state.

Foundational language for packages/web. If a pattern isn't here, derive it from the principles. When principles conflict, restraint wins — the default answer to "should I add something" is no.

Principles (earlier wins on conflict)

1. Calm control & progressive disclosure. Surface status and the 2–3 numbers that matter. Logs, metadata, and secondary actions live behind hover, tooltip, or drawer. More than ~7 primary signals per view is failure.
2. Data as decor. Sparklines, status dots, and aligned numbers are the visual rhythm. No shadows, decorative gradients, or heavy borders. Ornament gets deleted.
3. Strict structural layout. Bento grid, tight consistent padding, sections separated by a hairline — never by a different background shade. Flex rows for micro-data: [status] [name] [metric].
4. Typographic discipline. Monospace voice. Hierarchy via weight, case, and spacing — never size jumps. Numbers always tabular.
5. Restrained semantic color. Surfaces nearly indistinguishable from background. Accents reserved for state — not branding.
6. Functional motion. Motion says "this is happening." If removing it loses no information, remove it.

Stack & how tokens fit the codebase

Tailwind v4, CSS-first config. There is no tailwind.config.ts. All theme mapping lives in packages/web/src/styles/globals.css inside an @theme inline { … } block; raw design-language CSS vars live in packages/web/src/styles/theme.css. The build pipeline is @tailwindcss/vite (no PostCSS, no Autoprefixer — v4 handles vendor prefixing via Lightning CSS). Animations come from tw-animate-css (imported as @import "tw-animate-css"; in globals).

Two token layers coexist. Know which to reach for before writing a class:

• --sw-* (Fragua design language) — defined in theme.css. Surfaces, state accents, typography scale, spacing scale, radii, motion durations. Exposed as Tailwind utilities via @theme inline: bg-sw-surface, text-sw-muted, border-sw-border, bg-sw-accent-thinking, rounded-sw-card, text-sw-md, etc. Reach here first for product surfaces.
• shadcn vars (no prefix: --background, --foreground, --card, --muted, --border, --popover, --sidebar*) — baseline the bundled shadcn / AI Elements components are wired to. Exposed as Tailwind utilities too (bg-card, text-foreground, border-border, bg-sidebar). Don't fight them inside shadcn primitives; match them when extending those primitives.

Rule of thumb: pick one layer per element's visual identity. A bento cell you're authoring → bg-sw-surface + border-sw-border. A shadcn <Dialog> you're skinning → shadcn tokens. Mixing the two inside one element's palette is how the design drifts.

Already enforced globally — don't re-implement

In globals.css:

• box-shadow: none on * — elevation isn't a tool available to you, by design.
• border-radius: var(--sw-radius-default, 2px) default on *.
• font-variant-numeric: tabular-nums + "tnum" 1 on body — numbers are tabular everywhere.
• html, body inherit the mono stack via --font-mono.
• Tailwind's default text-base is rebound onto --sw-text-sm so stray text-base follows the Fragua scale rather than jumping to 16px.
• .sw-pulse utility — 1.0 → 0.55 → 1.0 opacity, 1800ms, respects prefers-reduced-motion. Use this; don't hand-roll keyframes for "thinking."
• dark variant wired via @custom-variant dark (&:where(.dark, .dark *)) — dark:bg-… works off a class="dark" anywhere up the tree.

v4 idioms to prefer, v3 relics to avoid

• Config belongs in CSS (@theme inline), not a .ts file. If you need a new theme token, add it to @theme inline in globals.css, not a new config file.
• Scan paths use @source "…" inside globals.css (already wired for streamdown). Don't reach for a content: [] array — no config file exists.
• Plugins load via @import "tw-animate-css" / @plugin "…" in CSS. Don't import animate from "tailwindcss-animate" — that package is gone.
• @apply still works for shared bits (e.g., border-border on *), but prefer token utilities in JSX.

Themes

Light is the default. Fragua flips the dev-tool dark convention. Dark is a peer; every token has both values in theme.css (:root vs .dark), both intentionally designed — not auto-inverted.

Both modes share the vibe: low contrast between surface layers. A card and the page are nearly the same value — separation is a 1px hairline, not a lighter panel.

Color

Accents communicate state. No decorative accents. No "primary" color that isn't a state. Desaturate 15–30% from the first guess. No gradients on surfaces (inside a sparkline is fine). Status dots carry the color; labels stay text-sw-text or text-sw-muted.

Never hex literals. Prefer the Tailwind utility; drop to style={{ color: 'var(--sw-accent-error)' }} only when a utility doesn't exist (e.g., gradient stop, box-shadow mask).

Typography

Monospace is the voice. Body already inherits the mono stack from :root. Don't reach for Tailwind's font-sans on product surfaces just because shadcn ships with it — font-sans is Geist, bound that way only for shadcn's own internals.

Stack (in --font-mono):

"Berkeley Mono", "JetBrains Mono", "IBM Plex Mono", ui-monospace, SFMono-Regular, Menlo, monospace

Scale. Hierarchy is weight, case, and spacing — not size. Exposed as Tailwind utilities; use those.

Weights. 400, 500, 600. No 700+. No italics except inline code in prose.

Case. UPPERCASE with ~0.06em letter-spacing for section labels and column headers. Sentence case elsewhere. Never Title Case.

Line-height. 1.4 body, 1.2 headings, 1.0 for dense numeric tables.

Tabular figures are global — don't add tabular-nums redundantly, but also don't disable them.

Spacing

4px base. These steps only — no arbitrary px.

Tailwind's default --spacing base is 4px, so p-3 is exactly --sw-space-3. Prefer the Tailwind utility. Drop to p-[var(--sw-space-3)] only if you need the var reference for a calc or a non-spacing property.

First drafts should feel slightly too tight. Air comes from alignment, not margin.

Borders & elevation

• 1px only, border-sw-border. Tone shifts by theme, width never.
• Radius: rounded-sw-default (2px) default, rounded-sw-card (4px) for cards/drawers, rounded-sw-none (0) for table rows and dense stacks. Pills only where the pill is the status shape.
• Elevation: none. box-shadow: none is already set on *. Drawers separate via backdrop scrim + hairline. Reaching for shadow means you need more spacing or a hairline.

Layout

• Bento grid. Rectangles divided by hairlines, sized by content weight, not equal thirds.
• Flex rows for micro-data: [status-dot] [name — flex:1] [metric — tabular, right-aligned].
• Consistent padding inside every cell — p-3 for a status card and a log card alike. Don't vary padding by "importance."

Motion

Only animate transform and opacity. Paired elements (drawer + scrim, tooltip + arrow) share easing and duration. Motion durations are exposed as CSS vars so timings stay uniform across components — reach for them in transition-* arbitrary values (duration-[var(--sw-duration-hover)]).

Rules:

• Use .sw-pulse for all "thinking/streaming/awaiting" indicators. It already handles duration and prefers-reduced-motion.
• Use tw-animate-css utilities for entrance/exit on shadcn primitives (animate-in, fade-in-0, slide-in-from-top-2, etc.). Don't hand-roll keyframes for these.
• Easing by intent. ease-out enter/exit; ease-in-out on-screen morph; ease hover and color; linear only for constant-motion indicators — never for color.
• Pulse is slow. A fast pulse reads as error.
• High-frequency numerics. If a counter updates >5×/sec, batch to ~200ms ticks before animating — don't stack crossfades.
• prefers-reduced-motion: for anything you author outside .sw-pulse, swap pulse for static dimmed state, disable rolls, keep hovers (they're informational).
• Hover on hot rows. Omit hover animation on list rows users traverse hundreds of times per session. Keep it on buttons.

A conforming component (sketch)

A bento cell — status dot, name, metric. Shows the common v4 moves:

<div className="flex items-center gap-2 p-3 border border-sw-border rounded-sw-card bg-sw-surface">
  <span
    aria-hidden
    className="sw-pulse size-2 rounded-full bg-sw-accent-thinking"
  />
  <span className="flex-1 truncate text-sw-sm">agent-3</span>
  <span className="text-sw-base">1,284</span>
</div>

What's doing the work: mono inherited from root, no shadow (global), 1px hairline via border-sw-border, 12px padding (p-3), tabular-nums global, status carried by the dot's color not the label's, pulse that respects reduced motion — all expressed as first-class Tailwind utilities, no style={{}} escape hatch needed.

Authoring checklist

• No box-shadow, no decorative gradient, no border ≥ 2px
• No hex literals — sw-* or shadcn token utilities only
• Picked one token layer (Fragua or shadcn), not both, for the element's palette
• Every accent maps to a state
• Padding and radius are tokens (p-3, rounded-sw-card)
• Font size uses the scale (text-sw-sm / text-sw-md / …), never raw text-base / text-lg / px values
• Hierarchy survives the desaturate test (works if you strip color)
• Both themes verified — not just light
• Secondary info behind hover / drawer
• Live-updating numbers have a transition
• Processing elements use .sw-pulse
• Animations touch only transform and opacity
• No font-sans on a product surface

Anti-patterns

• Shadow to separate cards → hairline. (And box-shadow: none is already global — if you see one, something is fighting the reset.)
• Background shade for hierarchy → same surface, hairline.
• Icon-only status → always label.
• "Primary" color that isn't a state → no brand-blue buttons.
• font-sans on product surfaces because shadcn has it → inherit mono.
• Mixing sw-* and shadcn tokens inside one element's palette → pick a layer.
• Hex literals, #fff, #000 → token utilities only.
• Giant headings → weight + case do the work.
• Welcome-theater animation on load → motion is for state.
• Linear easing on color or hover → use ease.
• Hand-rolled "thinking" keyframes → use .sw-pulse.
• Reaching for tailwindcss-animate or a tailwind.config.ts → both gone under v4; use tw-animate-css utilities and @theme inline.
• Title Case anywhere.

Source: purrgrammer/fragua — distributed by TomeVault.