Values you can check.

1. Art direction

• Deep chroma black canvas (#06070b), never flat pure black.
• One accent mood doing one job — a few percent of the surface.
• One light wash from the top-right; panels defined by hairlines, not stacks of shadows.
• Type trio only: Fraunces display, Instrument Sans body, IBM Plex Mono meta/code.
• Signature mark: the mood dot/orb — reserved for brand pip and living attention, not bullet decoration everywhere.

Checkable: remove accent → hierarchy still holds; cover logo → still recognisably Glim via type + depth + companion behaviour.

2. Colour

Neutrals dominate (~75%+). Misuse: mood as full-bleed gradient wallpaper; thinking violet for errors; talking pink for chrome.

3. Alpha / emphasis ladder

Hairline .08 · control border .13 · mood wash .16. Readable ink must not rely on low-alpha greys — floor for readable UI chrome opacity ≈ 0.55 equivalent contrast.

4. Type

Floors: product UI 13px · marketing body 15px · hero line uses display clamp. Two weights per family is enough.

5. Shape

Read surfaces → radius 14px. Act controls → radius 10px. Pill badges → 20px. Signature circle reserved for mood pip / companion orb — do not use perfect circles as generic bullets.

6. Depth & lighting

Light enters from top-right via mood-soft wash. No stacked card shadows.

7. Motion

Signature: proximity lean, react() pulse, say() caret. Ceremony: first real reply after configure — rare. Reduced motion: kill transforms and caret blink; keep state colour.

8. Imagery & data viz

• Photography: almost none — product is the creature stage + honest UI chrome.
• Proof assets: real captures only (proof-states.gif, og.png).
• Never: fake dashboards, invented spark lines, stock laughing-laptop photos.
• If plotting later: soft density fields over hard grid certainty.

9. Signature element

Icons

Site prop icons are minimal dots/spans today — not a full set. Future icons: one stroke weight, round caps, arcs/ellipses preferred; at most one filled shape (the mood pip meaning).