Skip to main content
This is a proposal extracted from Khôi’s settings stack, PRs #7790–#7794. Verify the merged implementation before adopting the component contracts below. The screenshot matrix and visual regression coverage are pending. This page does not establish accessibility conformance or production acceptance.

​
Design source

The settings design is by Khôi (Vo Minh Khoi, @VoMinhKhoii): #7790 introduces sections and scoped contrast, #7791 applies account and preference panels, #7792 covers workspace and developer panels, #7793 covers shared and Tasks settings, and #7794 covers domain panels. The design groups related decisions into cards in a centered column. Labels and controls align across rows. Hierarchy comes from headings, spacing, and hairlines. Color communicates state rather than decorating every setting.

​
Component map

These contracts describe the proposed completed stack, including #7794’s inline row default. They are not exports guaranteed by an earlier stack layer. controlWidth is a shared scale: xs = w-48, sm = w-56, md = w-64, lg = w-72, xl = w-80, and 2xl = w-96, applied at the row’s @lg container breakpoint. The classes belong in the shared component so every app emits them. Avoid app-local arbitrary widths for routine controls.

​
Layout, spacing, and typography

The shell uses max-w-3xl with space-y-8. Mobile content has px-4 py-6; desktop content has md:px-10 md:py-10. The desktop sidebar is w-64 and appears at md. Row padding is px-4 py-4 md:px-5. Section headers use space-y-3 above the card. Footer padding is px-4 py-3 md:px-5, with wrapping actions and gap-2. Use the existing Tailwind spacing scale rather than pixel literals. The page title is text-2xl font-semibold tracking-tight. Section titles are text-base font-semibold tracking-tight. Row titles are text-sm font-medium; descriptions are text-sm text-muted-foreground. Preserve meaningful instructions, validation, and recovery text. Remove duplicate page titles and redundant slogans. Inline rows switch at @lg (512px of container width), independent of viewport width. At narrow widths, labels precede controls. Long values need wrapping or a bounded scroll region. Review translated labels, long identifiers, zoom, and the last reachable action rather than relying on a desktop screenshot alone.

​
Tokens and themes

Use bg-background, bg-card, text-foreground, text-muted-foreground, border-border, border-input, and bg-accent for their semantic roles. Use destructive for destructive actions and existing dynamic-* state colors only for meaningful status. Pair color with text or an icon and an accessible name. Avoid raw hex, RGB, HSL, OKLCH, arbitrary color utilities, and decorative hue classes in application components. Token definitions remain in the shared stylesheet. The proposed settings scope separates borders, inputs, cards, and accent surfaces in dark mode. It also keeps disabled input values readable at full opacity while disabled buttons remain visibly unavailable. Do not extend these overrides to the global product theme without a separate visual review. Disabled is not read-only: values that people must select or copy need an appropriate interaction model. Light and dark screenshots are separate acceptance cases. A semantic token name alone does not prove sufficient contrast, especially for focus indicators, disabled values, validation messages, and selected navigation. With expand-all enabled or search active, sidebar groups are non-collapsible and redundant labels for single-item groups are hidden. Otherwise the group control collapses its children. Keep active state, keyboard access, focus restoration, and mobile back navigation. Do not add a chevron to a control that cannot collapse. Keep form submission boundaries, validation schemas, permission checks, dirty-state logic, confirmation dialogs, and pending-state disabling when composing rows. Connect each input to a visible label and its error. Keep failed values available for correction. Do not turn an explicit-save form into autosave during styling. Put destructive actions in a final section with a destructive button and preserve the existing confirmation behavior.

​
Explicit state machines

Steve Ruiz’s tldraw prompt, “find all of the implicit state machines in my app”, is a useful review question. Model each UI surface’s mutually exclusive states as one discriminated union. Do not scatter isLoading, isEmpty, hasError, and isSuccess booleans across a panel. Keep valid concurrent concerns in separate, named machines rather than forcing unrelated processes into one status. This illustrative type describes a settings editor. Values is the domain’s validated form type, not an unvalidated network response:
Loading cannot also be empty or successful. Disabled and stale states carry the values people need to read and an explanation. Saving keeps the submitted draft; a failed save transitions to error with that draft. Use a reducer or equivalent transition function to admit events only in valid states. Render with an exhaustive switch (state.kind) and a never check so adding a state requires a designed view. Do not claim this illustrative union enforces transitions by itself. Design every reachable state, including stale data during refresh, pending saves, permission changes, and recovery. If a state cannot occur for a surface, omit it and document why in its review evidence. Test actual events and recovery paths; a screenshot of a manually selected state does not prove that users can reach it. Khôi’s section messages, form errors, pending buttons, and empty lists provide presentation references for these states. The captured settings diffs still contain query and mutation booleans. They do not establish that every panel already uses this discriminated-union architecture. Preserve their behavior during extraction; apply the explicit-state requirement to new and substantially edited UI logic.

​
UI review checklist

  • Use the component map; justify any new primitive against existing first-party callers.
  • Keep one page title and group related settings without nested cards.
  • Use semantic colors and the spacing scale; review any token exception explicitly.
  • Verify visible labels, errors, keyboard focus, search, and mobile navigation.
  • Are all states designed and reachable, and impossible combinations unrepresentable?
  • Use one discriminated state per mutually exclusive UI machine, with exhaustive rendering.
  • Exercise idle, loading, empty, error, success, disabled, stale, saving, and permission states as applicable.
  • Preserve schema, submission, permissions, URL state, and destructive confirmations.
  • Capture 390px and 1440px viewports in light and dark, with no horizontal overflow.
  • Check long translated content, copied values, focus contrast, and the final action.
  • Record exact source, route, theme, viewport, fixture state, and screenshot path.
  • Distinguish source checks, browser acceptance, CI, and production evidence.

​
Reference screenshots and acceptance

Khôi’s source screenshots are in the settings redesign directory after #7790 lands. The PR contains appearance, security, profile, navigation, workspace, members, and personality examples. Filenames such as security-mobile do not establish an exact viewport or complete theme coverage. Fresh captures must use the merged stack and a deterministic, non-sensitive fixture. The required matrix is account/security, appearance/preferences, workspace/developer, Tasks, and one domain panel, each at 390 and 1440 pixels, in light and dark. Capture default and representative loading, empty, and error states. Store the source SHA and capture metadata beside approved references. Until those captures are reviewed, this proposal has no complete screenshot acceptance receipt.

​
Enforcement proposal

Start with advisory diagnostics for raw color and arbitrary spacing in changed UI source. Shared token definitions and genuine user-authored color data need distinct handling. Do not auto-rewrite data colors or CSS measurements into semantic tokens. Warnings need file, line, rule, and a suggested existing token or scale. Visual CI must use the shared dependency cache and affected-input selection. Include shared UI, tokens, tested surface source, fixture, configuration, lockfile, and browser version in the result identity. Cache browser binaries and dependencies; reuse a passing result only for identical inputs in the same trusted context. Never share privileged caches with untrusted pull requests or skip required security checks. Baseline changes require reviewed screenshots, not an automatic acceptance of every image difference. This proposal does not install lint or visual CI.