Chromatic

Skill Manifest

SKILL.md

SKILL.md — hard rules and quickstart

Read the README.md file within this skill, and explore the other available files.

If creating visual artifacts (slides, mocks, throwaway prototypes, etc.), copy assets out and create static HTML files for the user to view. The single source of truth for tokens is colors_and_type.css — drop it into any HTML and you have the system. Switch themes via <html data-theme="trust">; flip mode with class="dark" on <html>.

If working on production code, copy assets/chromatic.css (Tailwind 4 build, all 20 themes), the TS package files in assets/, and the fonts in fonts/. Read references/chromatic-design.md for the color science and references/chromatic-agent-knowledge.md for the build playbook.

If the user invokes this skill without any other guidance, ask them what they want to build or design, ask some questions about intention (which of the 20 themes — trust, energy, harmony, spirit, urgency, neutral, …), audience, and surface (web app, marketing, slides), and act as an expert designer who outputs HTML artifacts or production code, depending on the need.

Hard rules to never break:

  • Saturation never above ~25%. Backgrounds 8–12%, surfaces 10–14%, borders 12–16%, interactive 14–18%.
  • No pure black, no pure white. Use *-50 (hsl(0 0% 98%)) and *-950 (hsl(0 0% 4%)).
  • One hue family per view. Bridge with achromatic when you must combine.
  • Move one shade-step at a time across nested surfaces.
  • Geist (sans), Geist Mono (code/pills/numbers), Geist Pixel (hero accents only).
  • Lucide icons, 1.5–2 px stroke, currentColor only. No emoji in product UI.
  • 4-px spacing grid. Card radius 12, button radius 6, pill radius 2 — child radii smaller than parent.
  • Animate only transform and opacity. Easing cubic-bezier(0.4,0,0.2,1). No bounces.

If you only read one section of the README, read VISUAL FOUNDATIONS.