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product-design

Design
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chmonitor's product design system + UX conventions, so every new feature looks and behaves consistent with the rest of the dashboard. Use BEFORE building or reviewing any UI: new pages, charts, cards, dialogs, empty/error/loading states, badges, onboarding, settings. Covers design tokens (OKLCH theme, dark mode, radius, chart colors), shadcn/ui rules, the ChartCard/ChartContainer pattern, data-table system, EmptyState variants, graceful error handling, ?host routing + hooks-at-deepest-consumer, file/route organization, and brand. Triggers: "new page", "add a chart", "build UI", "design", "component", "empty state", "loading", "consistent", "follow-up feature", "match the design".

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chmonitor product design system

The rulebook for keeping new features visually + behaviourally consistent. When in doubt, COPY the closest existing component rather than inventing. Full token values and file paths: docs/knowledge/product-design.md.

Non-negotiables

  1. Never edit src/components/ui/* (shadcn primitives). Customise via the className prop at the call site, or a wrapper in src/components/ — never in ui/. Always merge classes with cn() (src/lib/utils.ts), never template-literal concatenation.
  2. Tailwind v4, CSS-first. Tokens live in src/styles.css @theme blocks — there is no tailwind.config.ts. Use semantic tokens (bg-card, text-muted-foreground, border-border), not raw colors. Theme is OKLCH.
  3. Dark mode is class-based (next-themes, .dark). Every surface must read correctly in both themes — only use semantic tokens, which flip automatically. Don't hardcode bg-white / text-black.
  4. Hooks at the deepest consumer. A component that needs data calls useHostId() / useChartData() itself — do NOT prop-drill hostId.
  5. ?host=N routing, never dynamic /N/... segments. Preserve other search params with buildUrl(pathname, { host }, searchParams).
  6. No "AI slop" decoration — one clear signal per state, not several redundant ones. No full-saturation accent bars/rails stacked on an already-colored border; no gradient blobs/glow orbs behind icons. See "Anti-patterns" in docs/knowledge/product-design.md.

Tokens (semantic — use these names, not hex/oklch literals)

background foreground card card-foreground popover muted muted-foreground primary secondary accent destructive border input ring. Charts: --chart-1..13 for series, plus named accents --chart-red (error series), --chart-blue (info), --chart-green (success), --chart-yellow (warning) — only pass tokens that exist in styles.css to a chart's colors prop; an undefined var() renders the series black. Radius: rounded-md (9px) default, rounded-lg (10px), rounded-xl (14px) for cards. Brand accents: orange (metrics) + emerald (health/live) — see components/icons/chmonitor-logo.tsx.

Canonical idioms (match these class strings)

  • Card surface: rounded-xl border bg-card shadow-sm (premium variant adds bg-gradient-to-b from-card/80 to-card/40 dark:from-card/60 dark:to-card/30 backdrop-blur-xl). See components/charts/chart-card-styles.ts.
  • Icons: lucide-react, size-4 standard / size-3.5 compact / strokeWidth={1.5}.
  • Dense text: text-[13px] controls, text-sm body, text-xs text-muted-foreground meta, text-xl font-semibold tracking-tight page/hero titles.
  • Spacing: gap-1.5 compact, gap-2 standard, gap-4 generous; card content p-4 pt-0.
  • Pill/secondary button link: inline-flex h-8 items-center gap-1.5 rounded-md border border-border px-3 text-[13px] font-medium hover:bg-muted.
  • Clickable card → detail dialog: whole card is the target (role="button" + tabIndex={0} + onKeyDown={activateOnEnterOrSpace(open)}, never a nested <button>); inner links e.stopPropagation() (not preventDefault) so they still navigate. Drive drill-down from a per-item field, rendered via ResultTable. See components/health/{health-card-shell,health-detail-rows}.tsx.
  • Overflow strip (one row, no wrap): scrollbar-hide overflow-x-auto + py-* (so shadows/accents/focus rings aren't clipped) with a chevron button + a from-background→transparent edge fade per scrollable side, paging via scrollBy. Re-measure on scroll / ResizeObserver / content-count change. Copy components/insights/insights-strip.tsx.
  • Paired page sections (e.g. AI-generated vs. plain-statistics content): identical-weight header on both — icon (size-4, muted-foreground) + <h2 className="text-sm font-medium text-foreground">. A genuinely empty section still gets the header, with an EmptyState variant="no-data" compact placeholder card, rather than being omitted. See /insights and /insights-settings (AI Insights vs Statistics Insights — the latter is now a real StatsInsightsSettingsForm).
  • Preview / "Example" surfaces: render from deterministic mock data parameterized by settings (seed-rotated, SSR-safe), never a live query/LLM call — no "Couldn't generate" error for anon/read-only visitors. Label it "Sample". See components/insights/insights-preview.tsx.
  • Base UI primitives (components/ui/* = shadcn Base UI, not Radix): style overlays off data-open/data-closed/data-orientation (needs the @custom-variant data-horizontal|vertical in styles.css) and Base UI CSS vars (--anchor-width, --available-height, --collapsible-panel-height), NOT data-[state=…] / --radix-*. Use the render prop, not asChild. Full detail in the knowledge doc's "Base UI backing" section.

Charts — always wrap state, never hand-roll it

Use ChartContainer (renders skeleton / ChartError / empty) + ChartCard (title, SQL, metadata, stale indicator, retry). Fetch with useChartData({ chartName, hostId, interval }). Header icon order: [StaleIndicator] [DateRange] [LogScaleToggle] [CardToolbar]. Copy an existing chart in components/charts/ as the template — don't reinvent the wiring.

Loading / empty / error

  • Loading: a Skeleton that matches the final layout (components/skeletons/) to avoid layout shift; gate with Suspense where used.
  • Empty: EmptyState (components/ui/empty-state.tsx) with the right variant (no-data | no-results | error | table-missing | timeout | filtered-empty | offline | loading), icon, title, description, optional action/onRefresh.
  • Error (graceful): initial error (error && !hasData) → full ChartError with retry. Revalidation error (staleError) → KEEP showing data + subtle amber ChartStaleIndicator (hover-revealed), auto-clears on next success. Never blank out good data on a refresh failure.
  • First run (zero hosts): FirstRunGate → FirstRunEmptyState (3 modes: cloud signed-in / cloud anon / self-hosted). See the cloud-saas-mode skill.

Data tables

Use the components/data-table/ system (resizing, wrap toggle, sorting via sorting-fns.ts, pagination, faceted filters, row actions, SQL display). Synthetic column ids __expand, select, action are non-data — skip them in filter/search/sort/card wiring.

User appearance settings

The Settings dialog (components/settings/settings-form.tsx) exposes units (byteUnit, numberFormat), chart palette (chartPalette), table density (tableDensity) and default time range on UserSettings. Every DEFAULT reproduces the prior look byte-for-byte. Applied by AppearanceSettingsProvider (lib/context/appearance-settings.tsx): units → module snapshot in lib/format-settings.ts (read by the format-readable helpers); palette/density → data-chart-palette / data-density on <html> with --chart-* and data-slot padding overrides in styles.css (never edit ui/table.tsx). For 2–3 choices use components/settings/segmented-control.tsx. Full detail: docs/knowledge/product-design.md.

Adding a page

  1. src/routes/(dashboard)/my-page.tsx ('use client', uses useHostId()).
  2. Add a QueryConfig in src/lib/query-config/ if it needs data.
  3. Register in src/menu.ts (with feature gate / tableCheck if optional).
  4. Compose ChartContainer + ChartCard; reuse skeletons + empty/error states.

File & naming conventions

kebab-case files; PascalCase components; use* camelCase hooks; props as interface XProps colocated; client components declare 'use client', server components don't; shared types in src/types/ or src/lib/api/types.ts. Details in docs/knowledge/conventions.md.

Keep this skill current

This skill is the source of truth for design consistency. When you introduce or change a durable UI pattern (a new token, a reusable component, an empty/error/onboarding convention), UPDATE this file + docs/knowledge/ product-design.md in the SAME change. See the "Auto-improve project skills" note in the root CLAUDE.md.