Visual identity & color

The palette

Parch's identity is a teal→blue gradient with a purple secondary accent, defined once in the design tokens. Interfaces use it sparingly: brand moments (logo, heroes, onboarding) may use the gradient; product UI uses the semantic tokens.

Semantic roles

Color communicates role, never decoration:

• Accent (teal), primary actions, selection, focus rings, active navigation. One accent action per view.
• Info (blue), neutral information and in-progress states.
• Success (green), completed operations and healthy states.
• Warning (amber), attention needed but recoverable.
• Danger (red), destructive actions and failures only. Red is never decorative.

Dark theme

Dark is a first-class theme, not an inverted one: surfaces get lighter with elevation (background → surface → surface-2), brand colors brighten to keep contrast, and shadows give way to borders and subtle surface shifts.

• Never hardcode hex values; use semantic tokens so both themes work.
• Test every screen in both themes before shipping (the design-system demos have a built-in switch for exactly this).
• Respect the system theme by default; offer an in-app override only when the app is fullscreen for long sessions (video, terminal).