The theme that shipped in the first cut was quiet to a fault: outside
the hero, its pages fell back to ruled prose. This revision gives the
theme a constructive vocabulary and tightens the site integration
around it.
Theme (grid.md, rewritten):
- A marks kit: period square, 3px bar, register crosshair, quarter-disc,
stepped bars, dot module, border arrows, 45-degree diagonal, and giant
cropped numerals, all locked to the column tracks.
- The plate: at most one full-bleed flooded band per page as the poster
moment, rails continuing across it.
- A signal-ink axis: one ink per page, signal red (default), ultramarine,
or surface-only signal yellow; two pages in a run never share the ink.
- Section-object law: a band that is only prose has failed the theme.
- Asymmetric occupancy (prose capped at 6 of 12 columns) and structural
whitespace; grid-snapped hover geometry and an optional ticker.
Site:
- grid-01 example replaced with signal, a Basel poster festival page
built on the revised theme; thumb regenerated at the 1400-wide
full-page convention (the first cut shipped a 1600x1000 viewport crop
that broke the hover scroll).
- Grid tokens: serif slot resolves to the grotesk (the theme has no
serif), doubled comment opener fixed, description updated.
- Landing: grid headings follow the theme's lowercase display voice;
hero copy updated to the signal-ink language.
- main.js: grid added to THEME_GENRES (missing in the first cut).
Consistency sweep the first cut missed:
- custom-theme.md catalog lists still said 20 themes; now 21 with Grid.
- components.css banner comment still said 20 themes.
Swiss neo-grotesque systems design: a near-white cool sheet with the
twelve-column hairline grid painted behind the content rather than implied,
one heavy Archivo run lowercase and slammed left, and exactly one signal red
used as a geometric mark. It fills the editorial cluster's neo-grotesque slot,
which until now was serif-led on every one of its members.
Skill side: the theme spec, and the catalog count from twenty to twenty-one in
the four places SKILL.md states it.
Site side: the token block, the switcher entry, the twenty-first dropdown dot,
Archivo added to the font load, the Buro Grid example page with its thumbnail,
and an entry in the theme contact sheet.
Not added to scroll-demos.json on purpose. Grid's motion is near-zero by
design, no reveals and no parallax, so a scroll recording would be an empty
file advertising something the theme refuses to do.
README carries the new count only, no new section.
Carnival: fixed the three palette drops whose second accent failed contrast,
tightened the display tracking, and added section-rhythm, alignment, and
drop-selection guidance so the theme lands well-aligned and readable by
default. Lightened and tightened the Carnival headers on the landing.
Anti-slop guards (skill references): heading-to-body alignment coherence as a
principle rather than a rigid rule; centered overlays and command palettes must
center via their container; and a hero headline is never only a number, a lead
figure always pairs with words.
Worked Examples: added three generated pages to the landing carousel, a
small-batch honey farm, a risograph print fair, and an experimental type
studio, after fixing their nav centering and section alignment.
Media: removed the Soroe example card along with the unused scroll-videos,
poster stills, and orphaned thumbnails it left behind, and bumped the asset
cache-bust so the restyled CSS reloads.
Replace the carousel's inconsistent scroll-videos with one CSS image hover-scroll
across all twelve cards. Each thumb is a tall full-page screenshot that pans top
to bottom on hover, with a per-card duration scaled to page height so they all
move at the same brisk, readable pace; captured Retina-sharp at 1400px wide.
Touch and reduced-motion get a static crop. Drop the Slow Pour card.
Bump the version to v1.1 on the landing (banner + footer), package.json, SKILL.md,
and the preview-block examples.
Give the five image cards (the four new themes and the Mend Assembly) a
hover-scroll: each thumb is now a tall full-page screenshot, and CSS pans
object-position top to bottom on hover so the page scrolls itself. No video,
no JS, GPU-light; touch and reduced-motion get a static top crop. Cache-bust
the regenerated thumbs.
Trim the README Custom section to the single Mend Assembly feature (matching
the landing) and de-dash the whole README. Fix three pre-existing dead doc
links in the component cookbook (floating-nav, custom-craft, hero-enrichment
were linked without the ../ that reaches the references root).
Swap the Hum carousel card from Sprout (hum-02) to Bubble (hum-07), the
guided sourdough Narrative Workflow build. Keep only one custom example in
the showcase, the Mend Assembly repair-cafe poster; the other bespoke pages
stay in the repo but off the landing. Untrack hum-02 so only featured builds
ship, refresh the scroll-demos manifest, and bump the cache version.
Adds Carnival, Lumen, Hum, and Cobalt to the catalogue (now 20 themes),
each with its own tokens block, hero archetype, landing copy, and spec doc.
Introduces Custom as a first-class route: when a brief carries real
creative intent, Hallmark designs the whole page from first principles —
palette, type, and structure — rather than recolouring a catalogue theme.
Ships five worked custom examples and a README section.
Rewrites the per-theme landing copy and reconciles every catalogue count
across the site and the skill (20 themes · 21 macrostructures · 50
component archetypes · 70 slop-test gates). Drops the last competitor
references from the CSS comments, fixes the genre rosters, and ignores
the local example explorations so only the featured builds ship.
The before/after demo in the comparison gallery (Section 06) was
broken because the on-disk files had drifted from the HTML refs:
- HTML: <img src="_tests/_thumbs/before-quiet-hour.png" />
- Disk: before-quite-hours.jpeg (JPEG, typo "quite", plural "hours")
- HTML: <img src="_tests/_thumbs/after-quiet-hour.png" />
- Disk: after-quite-hour.png (typo "quite")
Re-encoded the before file from JPEG to PNG via sips and renamed
both to the correct singular "quiet-hour" spelling that the HTML
references. The Quiet Hour DevForge before/after now renders.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
The README and SKILL.md had drifted out of sync with the current
slop-test.md (now 65 gates) and the verb state (refine was removed;
audit · redesign · study + default = four verbs total).
- README: revert lingering "refine" references; verb count 5 → 4
- README: gate count 55/60 → 65 across body + side notes
- README: section title "Eight pages, eight different shapes" →
"Different briefs, different shapes" — the old phrasing implied
the skill could only produce these eight specific sites
- README: replace eight <video src=...mp4> tags with <img> stills
(first-frame extracts via ffmpeg from the existing .mp4 files;
no autoplay overhead, faster page render on the readme view)
- SKILL.md: drop "refine" from the frontmatter trigger description;
sync "55-gate" → "65-gate" across routing file + stamp examples
No version bump — pure documentation drift catching up to the
current rule-set state.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Orphan thumbs (referenced nowhere): 8 example PNGs, 5 hero JPGs,
4 verb-* PNGs, audit-slop.png, 2.2 MB crypto-example.mp4.
Dead pages: refine verb test (verb removed earlier), v0 example
specimens (_example-bakery, _example-cmdk), docs/img theme PNGs,
skill/_tests/nav-footer-variety. Updated verbs/README and ROADMAP
to drop the now-broken references.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
· Examples-rail order: SaaS → wayfare → slow-pour → BananaStudio (moved
from 1st to 4th) → tracejam → anya-loop video (was static) → Najm-loop
(was Foundry static) → Soroe-loop (was Cohort static). Five videos +
three statics now. Five MP4s re-encoded to web (CRF 23–27, +faststart,
no audio).
· Audit demo: swapped the gradient slop placeholder for the new
audit-example.png. Caption removed (no longer reads as "actual slop").
· Redesign uractivation video: dropped data-hover-play so it autoplays
on every device (was hover-only on desktop).
· Footer: "Powered by" → "Made by" (re: the Together AI credit). Base
credit line now left-aligned across all viewports.
· Section labels: forced single-column section heads in every theme via
`.section__head, [data-theme] .section__head { grid-template-columns:
1fr !important }`. Linen + Almanac left-gutter overrides removed —
every section reads label-above-title now.
· Section pulls: deleted every `<a class="section__pull">` ("See the
verbs", "Read the rules", etc.) plus 67 lines of associated CSS. The
banner already provides Install + GitHub; no per-section nav needed.
· Per-theme demo captions ("Lap 1", "Plate I", "Frame 01", etc.)
removed — they appeared in the wrong section ("Lap 1" showed under
Study) and added clutter.
· Display max font sizes tightened across every theme token. Largest
caps were 13rem (Manifesto Anton) → 9rem; multiple 7.5–8rem caps
pulled down to 6.25–6.5rem. Skill-side typography.md now emits
`clamp(2.75rem, 5vw + 1rem, 5.25rem)` as the default --text-display.
· New section: Before / After Hallmark, after Foundations.
Same prompt ("/hallmark build a landing page for The Quiet Hour — a
weekly natural-wine dispatch from Lisbon") run two ways:
- Sonnet 4.6 alone → gradient AI slop (before-quiet-hour.png)
- Sonnet 4.6 + Hallmark → editorial dispatch (after-quiet-hour.png)
Hairline-framed panels with mono prompt at top, italic-serif captions.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
· Examples cards: dropped 01–08 numbers, dropped Banana Studio / Modern SaaS /
etc. titles + subheaders, dropped the 5-row hover trail popover. Each card
now shows a single mono line: "$ /hallmark build <prompt>". Removed the
"Open any card →" hint from the section intro.
· Replaced cards 03 (Maple) + 04 (Meridian) with the new wayfare-loop.mp4
+ slow-pour-loop.mp4 videos. Re-encoded all four MP4s for web (CRF 23,
+faststart, no audio). wayfare downscaled from 4K to 1080p (9.3 MB → 2 MB).
· Audit demo: swapped the inline CSS gradient slop card for a static
audit-slop.png (1024×640 capture of the same card). Cleaner DOM, same
visual. Caption "Specimen — actual AI slop, untouched" stays.
· Redesign demo: before = example-redesign-uractivation.png, after =
uractivation-after-loop.mp4 (looped video). Diptych CSS extended to
style <video> identically to <img>.
· Hover-play behaviour: videos with data-hover-play start paused on
hover-capable devices (desktop) and only play while hovered/focused.
On touch devices (no hover), the autoplay attribute keeps them
looping continuously — pages read as moving showcases on mobile.
· Specimen: section-pull CTAs ("Read the rules", "See named tells")
now flush left like every other CTA on that theme. Override only on
[data-theme="specimen"]; other themes keep right-aligned pulls.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
· Footer: stripped Ft1–Ft4 archetypes (.foot--masthead, .foot--inline,
.foot--index, .foot--dense) + their helper classes (.foot__tagline,
.foot__links, .foot__powered, .foot__col-head, .foot__wordmark-small,
.foot__sep, .foot__credits) — every theme uses .foot--colophon now.
· Hero: dropped H6 Photographic, H7 Clipped, H8 Specimen archetype
blocks (404 lines of CSS) plus per-theme overrides on .hero__photo,
.hero__photo-grid, .hero__mock, .hero--clipped — no theme references
any of these archetypes after the recent reroutes.
· Templates: removed `<template id="section-04-archive-without-with">`,
`<template id="section-05-archive-foundations-tabs">` (revertibility
archives — superseded), and the three dead hero templates.
· Local fonts: deleted site/fonts/the-future-*.woff2 (8 files) and the
empty site/fonts/ directory. Geist + Geist Mono cover all type roles.
· Media: dropped the unprocessed BananaStudio-example.mp4, Podcast-example.mp4,
SaaS-example.mp4 — only the -loop.mp4 versions are referenced.
· main.js: removed buildDenseColophon() helper (dense colophon never
rendered after the unified footer rework).
Total: ~930 lines removed. No visual regression.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Replace The Future + The Future Mono everywhere with Geist + Geist Mono — both
local fonts had a single-storey hooked "a" by design, not by faux italic. Strip
the @font-face declarations + preload links. Halo dropdown z-index leak fixed.
Editorial hero proof block strips down to just the CTA. Atelier + Salon now
left-aligned. Skill-row / hero / examples ledes unified to roman serif (italic
removed from every body / lede / intro role to kill the curly italic "a").
Refine verb removed everywhere: SKILL.md, README, landing site, references.
Ask-questions discipline strengthened — Step 1 now always asks, optional answers.
Build subsection wires Podcast loop video; Study uses Calendly screenshot with
re-written DNA fields; Worked-examples 1+2 use Banana Studio + Modern SaaS
loops in place of static thumbs. Landing-page rebrand reverted everywhere.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Section 03 ships as the five-skills showcase (Build · Study · Audit ·
Refine · Redesign), each row with its own structurally-distinct demo.
SKILL.md and references — new disciplines that hold across every verb:
· Pre-emit self-critique on six axes (Philosophy · Hierarchy · Execution
· Specificity · Restraint · Variety) — anything <3 triggers revision
· Honest copy — no fabricated metrics, real numbers or labelled
placeholder, never invent "+47% conversion"
· Locked tokens — no mid-render colour or font-family improvisation
· Re-drawn UI chrome forbidden — never hand-build fake browser bars,
phone frames, code-block windows, IDE chrome
· Clickable text never wraps to two lines on shrink
Slop test grows from 55 to 60 gates (gates 56–60). Pre-emit critique
block sits above the gate sweep. anti-patterns.md gains five new named
entries; responsive.md gains "Clickable text — never wraps" with the
4-step fix order.
Site:
· Studio photographic hero — empty 3x3 placeholder grid replaced with
a 3x2 showcase of six real Hallmark output thumbnails (Static Hour,
NAJM, Tally hero, Nexus, Tracejam, Tally process)
· Studio — strip "· selected work" suffix from section labels
(::after rule removed) and from hero eyebrow COPY
· FAQ section dropped from landing page · CSS removed · Install
renumbered 07 → 06, footer reveal index 7 → 6
· Section 03 Row I (Build) demo swaps Tide → Static Hour
· README — concise intro paragraph, hero showcase swapped to four
new outputs (Static Hour, NAJM, Tally hero, Nexus)
Version bumped to 1.0.0 across package.json, SKILL.md, banner, footer,
JS captions, and the artifact stamp string.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Eight prompts re-run as a single rotating session under the new
pre-flight + rotation + preview disclosure layers. Every macrostructure
unique, every theme unique, every pick measurably different from the
previous generation.
01 Tide Quote-Led/Atelier → Letter/Salon
02 Streampipe Workbench/Terminal → Long Document/Terminal
03 Maple Long Document/Linen → Catalogue/Almanac
04 Meridian Manifesto/Manifesto → Quote-Led/Brutal
05 Tracejam Bento Grid/Pastel → Workbench/Midnight
06 Anya Long Document/Studio → Index-First/Plain
07 Foundry Stat-Led/Plain → Bento Grid/Newsprint
08 Cohort Marquee Hero/Salon → Stat-Led/Linen
Each brief.md walks Steps 0 → 6 of the design flow so the discipline
is visible. Updated landing-page gallery cards, _tests/README.md, and
recipes.md to match. Re-captured all eight thumbnails.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
## Banner
- Combine .banner__random + .banner__kbd into one .banner__shuffle pill.
- New SVG: Lucide-style shuffle (two crossing arrows). Old icon clipped at
the viewBox edges; this one is sized 24×24 with stroke well inside.
- Click randomises (was already so); icon rotates 15° on hover; T kbd label
inside the pill as a hint, separated by a small vertical rule.
- Banner now uses display:flex with a spacer so the theme-name sits
immediately to the LEFT of the picker (closer, smaller text 0.95rem)
rather than centered far from the dots.
- New responsive breakpoints: 50rem (smaller dots), 44rem (hide picker
entirely on phones, keep mark + name + shuffle), 26rem (drop name).
- Shuffle now sits OUTSIDE the picker so it stays visible when the picker
is hidden on narrow screens.
## Gallery thumb fit
- Width was `100%` which only fills the content-area, leaving padding
visible to the right (negative margin-right doesn't extend element
width). Switched to `width: calc(100% + 2 * var(--space-lg))` so the
thumb truly bleeds to the card's inner-border on both sides.
- Added explicit `aspect-ratio: 16/10` + `object-fit: cover` +
`object-position: top left` so the thumb crops from the right (where
empty page-paper tends to live) rather than top/bottom (where hero
content usually is).
- Re-captured all 8 thumbnails at 1024×640 (matches the most common page
content max-width — Maple Bakery is 64rem = 1024px exactly), so each
page packs content closer to the right edge.
## Salon: centered examples intro
- Salon already centers .section__title; the .examples__intro lead
paragraph below it was left-aligned, looking off-axis on the centered
Salon section heads. Now centers with `text-align: center` +
`margin-inline: auto` for both .examples__intro and .examples__outro.
## Responsive headings (narrow viewports)
- At <30rem viewports, .opening__title and .hero__display were rendering
at min ~48px which is wider than the 320–375px content area for headers
longer than ~14ch. Body's `overflow-x: hidden` was masking the issue
visually but text was being clipped.
- New media query caps display at clamp(1.75rem, 9vw, 2.75rem) and forces
`max-width: 12ch` so long headers wrap.
- .section__title gets clamp(1.375rem, 5.5vw, 1.875rem) + 100% max-width
so multi-clause section titles wrap to multiple lines instead of being
clipped.
- .hero__lede / .opening__sub get 1rem font-size + 100% max-width on
narrow viewports so the lede paragraph fits.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
## Foundry repalleted from Newsprint to Plain (pure white)
The v0.6.0 gallery had six warm-paper thumbnails out of eight (Specimen,
Atelier, Linen, Newsprint, Salon, Studio all in cream/pink). Foundry now
counterweights with:
- **Paper:** `oklch(100% 0 0)` = pure #ffffff. Surfaces tinted toward 245 hue
with low chroma so the neutral-zero-chroma rule is honoured.
- **Accent:** deep ink-blue (`oklch(34% 0.18 250)`) — saturated enough to
register, dark enough to pair with stark white without reading as candy.
- **Display:** Inter Tight 900 (display-heavy, free baseline). All italic
emphasis converted to weight + accent-color emphasis (Inter Tight italic
is weaker than Playfair italic).
- **Body:** Inter Tight 400/500/700 (single-family page is allowed where
the family IS the design — Brutalist tone).
- **Wordmark:** Bricolage Grotesque 800 — different family from display
and body, per typography.md wordmark guidance.
- **Hero highlight:** "thirty-one days" now non-italic with a 2px ink-blue
underline rather than italic accent — fits the sans-display register.
Gives the gallery a deliberately different fingerprint at the cool /
stark / B2B-serious end of the spectrum that the warm-paper themes don't
cover. Diversification still passes vs Pastel (Tracejam): display style
differs, paper band shifts from cream to pure-white.
## Gallery thumb fit
The .gallery__thumb CSS dropped `aspect-ratio: 16/10 + object-fit: cover`
in favour of natural-aspect-ratio image sizing (`width: 100%; height:
auto` on the img, no aspect-ratio on the picture wrapper). More robust —
guarantees the image fills the card width edge-to-edge regardless of
theme tokens, and the natural 16:10 ratio of the captured screenshots
drives the height. Added `font-size: 0` on the picture to kill any
inline-element gap that could create whitespace.
## Screenshots re-captured at 1100×688
The previous 1280×800 capture left lots of empty page-margin space on
some test pages (workbench / stat-led layouts have content biased to
the left, leaving the right half visually empty). Tightening to 1100×688
packs content closer to the frame edges. All eight thumbnails re-shot.
## Files
- `site/_tests/07-foundry-compliance/style.css` — full repalette
- `site/_tests/07-foundry-compliance/brief.md` — theme rationale + diversification table
- `site/_tests/README.md` — table row + v0.6.0 changelog updated
- `site/css/components.css` — gallery thumb CSS simplified
- `site/index.html` — gallery card 07 copy updated to "Plain (#fff)"
- `site/_tests/_thumbs/*.png` — all 8 re-captured
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
## Tracejam (test 05) defects fixed
- Horizontal scroll suppressed via `html { overflow-x: clip }` + `body` fallback
- Navbar items vertically centered (`align-items: center`, `line-height: 1`)
- Wordmark switched from Geist to Fraunces (`--font-wordmark`) — different register from body
- Hero highlight raised from baseline to mid-x-height — reads as highlighter, not fat underline
- Browser-frame chrome dots get `aria-hidden="true"`
## Skill hardening — three new slop-test gates (35 → 38)
- **Gate 36**: page must not horizontally scroll on any viewport 320–1920 px
- **Gate 37**: decorative effects on text (highlighter / accent stroke / mark) must be visually verified at x-height, not baseline
- **Gate 38**: interactive bars must declare `align-items: center` + `line-height: 1`
## New reference rules
- `layout-and-space.md` § Page-edge clipping — global clip is mandatory under any clipped-edge enrichment
- `typography.md` § Wordmark / logo — wordmark may use a different display face; should on Bento / Stat-Led / Workbench / Marquee Hero
- `microinteractions.md` § When to ship motion by default — default-on for SaaS-shaped archetypes, default-off for Editorial / Manifesto / Letter / Quote-Led / Long Document; six recipes documented (number reveal, pricing lift, marquee, stagger, recommended-tier pulse, CTA hover)
- `macrostructures.md` § SaaS page sequence — hero → social proof → features → testimonials → pricing → FAQ → CTA → footer; with voice rules (real prices, specific testimonials, conversational FAQ)
## Meridian Manifesto (test 04) extended
7 sections → 11 sections. Added § What we refuse (anti-list with strikethrough), § Working rules (7 numbered operational principles), § The practice (3-paragraph narrative with drop-cap), § What we read (annotated bibliography with 8 titles). Voice consistent with the original manifesto — declarative, no testimonials, no pricing.
## Two new SaaS-focused tests
- **Test 07 — Foundry** (Stat-Led + Newsprint). SOC2 / ISO27001 compliance automation. Hero is one giant number ("847" — animated counter from 0). 9 sections incl. 3-tier pricing, 3 testimonials with role + company, 8-question FAQ. Pricing card hover-lift + recommended-tier pulse-once.
- **Test 08 — Cohort** (Marquee Hero + Salon). Cohort-based courses platform. Continuous-scroll marquee of course titles. Alternating-side feature rows with hand-built CSS visualisations (card-stack, hours grid, thread, report). Stagger-reveal on testimonials. 2-tier pricing, 6-question FAQ, centered Salon footer.
Both tests respect prefers-reduced-motion. Both pass the 38-gate slop test. Both demonstrate the new SaaS page sequence.
## Gallery thumbnails
`site/_tests/_thumbs/01–08.png` — eight 1024×640 screenshots captured via Chrome headless. Gallery cards on the landing page now show real visual previews above the text. Cards inherit theme tokens (radius, rule, shadow) so switching the landing page's theme reskins the card frames around the screenshots. Hover scales the thumb 1.025× over 500 ms; respects prefers-reduced-motion.
Section title updated: "Six pages, six different shapes." → "Eight pages, eight different shapes."
## SKILL.md version bump
0.5.0 → 0.6.0.
## Files
- 13 modified, 6 created (tests 07 & 08 directories), 8 thumbnails added.
- ~840 lines added, ~25 removed.
- All skill files mirrored into `~/.claude/skills/hallmark/`.
## Deferred to next session
- **Study + redesign combined verb** — single-shot screenshot-to-rebuilt-page.
- **Auto-generated OG cards** — Node + Puppeteer utility for 1200×630 PNG from macrostructure stamp.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
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