Internal reference — v1.0

The system

Every rule here exists because something in the category is broken and this is the correction. Where a choice is only taste, it is marked as taste.

1 · Live contrast audit

Computed in your browser right now against the real rendered values, not from a spreadsheet written when the tokens were authored. Edit tokens.css into non-compliance and this section turns red.

2 · Colour

A measurement of 24 logos in the website-audit category returned blue 11, neutral 4, orange 3, green 2 — the category is ~46% blue and thick with mascots and gradients. Warm ink-and-paper with one burnt-orange accent is chosen because it is the open lane, not because it is pretty.

Ember — the only accent

Ink — warm neutrals

Hue 75, never true grey. A trace of ember in every surface makes the page read as paper rather than as a default UI slab.

Status

Deliberately desaturated so they can sit inside an audit result without fighting the brand. Never the only signal — always paired with a label or shape.

3 · Type — two voices

The split is semantic, not decorative. If a person wrote it, it is sans. If the machine measured it, it is mono. That one rule does most of the work of making these pages read as an instrument rather than as marketing.

Scale

Fluid via clamp(), so no breakpoint ever restates a size.

4 · Form

Hard edges. A rounded corner is the fastest way to make a tool look like a consumer app. The one permitted softening is the chamfer — a 45° cut, not a curve — which is the brand's own corner and carries the product tiles.

Buttons

Run the check View a sample

The 15° rule

One angle in the entire system, used sparingly — a single rotated element against an orthogonal grid. Two angles is noise.

5 · Motion

Short and mechanical. Nothing bounces — a machine does not bounce. Anything over 240ms starts to feel like a website performing for you. All of it is disabled under prefers-reduced-motion.

instant

90ms — state flips, active states

fast

140ms — hover, focus, colour changes

base

200ms — reveals, expansions

slow

320ms — the largest permitted; use rarely

ease

cubic-bezier(0.2, 0, 0.13, 1) — decisive, no overshoot

6 · Forbidden

Enforced by review, not by the compiler. Each has a reason; none is arbitrary.

• Blue as primary — 46% of the category is already blue
• Animals, mascots, characters — the category is full of them (a frog, a bear, a cat, a dog, a lighthouse)
• Circles and roundels as containers — soft, consumer, generic
• Gradients as decoration — gradient blobs date a page instantly
• Gauges, speedometers, dials — every performance tool already has one
• Globes, magnifying glasses — the most exhausted icons in software
• Single-letter monograms — "A" collides with everything
• Rounded corners beyond 3px — except the 10px chamfer, which is a cut
• Colour as the only signal — always pair with text or shape
• The word "Artifact" alone — a live Class 42 registration is reported on the bare term. Always both words.
• "AI-made" as a selling point — in 2026 that is a liability signal on a paid tool, not a differentiator
• "Every tool runs on Apify" — never state platform dependence where identity belongs