# 2026-07-08 — Docs theme: the hero's visual law across every wiki page

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Type: log
```

Cameron asked for the splash-hero identity (porcelain|ink bisect, black
monolith, one amber core stripe, mono chrome) to be adopted by the
constitution and the rest of the docs site, which until now were near-stock
Starlight with an amber accent — and never even loaded IBM Plex (the fonts
were only linked on the splash page).

## What landed

- `site/src/styles/clinical-gore.css` rewritten from an 85-line token
  override into the full theme. Rules carried over from the hero
  composition: one flat black field with hairline seams (no layered grays,
  no shadows), everything square (`border-radius: 0` globally), chrome in
  letterspaced IBM Plex Mono uppercase (header brand, sidebar group labels,
  table headers, TOC label, pagination labels, statusline), body text in
  IBM Plex Sans for long-form reading.
- The amber core stripe marks machine presence: a 4px band before the
  brand, a 4px bar under every page title, links, the caution aside.
  Crimson appears only in the danger aside. The bisect survives as
  inversion: the current sidebar item and text selection render
  ink-on-porcelain.
- `site/astro.config.mjs`: IBM Plex loaded in `head` for all doc pages
  (same Google Fonts request as the splash); theme picker hidden — there is
  exactly one look, forced dark in both `:root` and `[data-theme='light']`.
- `site/src/components/Footer.astro`: Footer override appending the hero's
  statusline (`core online · claim: ring · suspicion 0.00` /
  `concealment first · overt war later`) to every docs page.

## Design/spec impact

No sim behavior. DESIGN.md now explicitly adopts the splash image as the
public identity plate and says the rendered constitution/wiki are part of
the same clinical-gore surface — amber = machine/caution, crimson = danger
and nothing else, gore never decoration, no stock-docs softness.

The identity is now binding: new spec
[wiki/interface/site.md](../interface/site.md) (the public site — one
visual law from splash to spec page), wired into SUMMARY.md, the spec
status board's Process set, the interface README, and wiki.md's renderer
bullet (which previously pointed only at terminal.md's palette).

## Checks

- `pnpm --dir site build` — 145 pages, clean.
- Live dev preview verified at desktop and mobile widths: constitution,
  spec status board (tables), pagination, statusline, search button,
  sidebar inversion; IBM Plex confirmed loaded via `document.fonts`.

## Next

- The new splash hero (illustration plate) is landing from the `hero-page`
  worktree; the docs theme is independent of it but shares the palette
  tokens — if the plate's field colors shift, update `--mis-*` in
  `clinical-gore.css` to match.