Red, blue, amber, green describe state. Never "accent," "flair," or "brand." If nothing is running, failed, pending, or complete — nothing is colored.

Default states are silent. Only non-normal states (Generating, Failed, Pending) wear a badge. A library of green dots is just noise.

"Create" not "Create new figment." Context supplies the noun. Every word in a label is one the user has to read before acting.

Don't decorate the chassis. The seam between panels is already the graphic. No drop shadows, no gradients, no rounded corners to soften structural honesty.

A card is clickable. No "Open" button inside. Hover raises 1px and the border sharpens — that's the affordance. Generating cards show Cancel. Failed cards show Delete.

Bricolage at 48px+ is an event. Section titles and key metrics only. Everywhere else the face carries enough weight at 16–22px without volume.

Labels, timestamps, metadata, IDs, coordinates — all Martian Mono, uppercase, 10px or below. The system talks about itself in a different voice from the content.

Never decoration. Every animation should tell the user something static can't: something entered, something's running, something changed. Reduced motion kills all of it.