Design Foundations

Foundations come before screens: a scale derived as a by-product of one screen's settle inherits that screen's exploration jitter — half-pixel sizes, missing rungs, one screen's accidents enshrined as law. Designed deliberately, as its own ceremony, it gives every later study something clean to snap to.

Run it once per project, after setup-design-handoff has installed the token structure and before the first screen study is settled. Re-run it any time as an audit. The componentize-design skill then only reconciles a screen against these foundations; it never designs a scale.

The shape of a foundation

Five families. Colour — and only colour — gets two layers: