Prior art: PAP-280 design-token audit (branch PAP-282-playground, not on master)

A previous audit/relink pass ran against this codebase in mid-2026. Its code never merged to master, but its findings are directly reusable by the token audit. Read this before Phase 1.

Key findings to inherit

• Drift is mostly NOT same-value-mappable. The relink pass (commit 032d6c8db on the branch) attempted to swap hardcoded values for existing semantic tokens without visual change and found only 6 exact-value swaps possible (text-muted-fg, rounded-md) out of ~220 audited drift sites (~193 color / 23 radius / 7 type). Implication for Phase 2: expect to mint many new verbatim tokens; do not force-fit near-misses onto existing tokens — that changes pixels.
• Token gap clusters identified (commit 96689351d): recurring un-tokenized needs were a code-surface background, an accent blue, and a muted feed text color — these became --surface-code, --accent-blue-style gap tokens on the branch. Audit should check whether the same clusters still dominate.
• Tailwind v4 tunability gotcha (learned the hard way): @theme inline bakes literals at build time; tunable tokens must live in a non-inline block.

Drafted usage rules (branch commit 6ba86cd4f — candidates for the human scale decision, NOT current master state)

• Radius: one monotonic scale sm 6 / md 8 / lg 10 / xl 14 / 2xl 16 / full. Assignments: sm=chips/badges/pills; md=buttons/inputs/menu items (default); lg=cards/popovers/panels; xl=dialogs/sheets/overlays; 2xl=hero/onboarding only; full=avatars/dots/capsules. Nested elements step down one tier from their container. (Master's current values differ — verify in the audit.)
• CTA tiers: three-tier button prominence — Primary (default/destructive): the single commit action per view; Secondary (secondary/outline): supporting actions; Tertiary (ghost/link): row actions, cancels, toolbar icons.
• Type styles: nine named intent styles (backed by --text-* tokens incl. micro 11px / nano 10px) instead of re-deriving text-lg font-semibold per call site. Color is a separate axis.
• Drift-prevention contract: no raw hex for chrome — use background / card / muted / accent / border / muted-foreground; when a needed value has no token, add a semantic token; intentional opt-outs (code/terminal blocks) carry a comment saying why, so a future re-link pass leaves them alone.

Reusable machinery on the branch

• A theme playground / theme editor with portable *.theme.json export-import (whole-app live retheme, A/B compare). Useful later for the human scale-collapse and brand/preset tune steps — not needed for the extraction run.
• .claude/skills/design-guide/ skill + ui/src/pages/DesignGuide.tsx showcase page (branch versions are richer than master's).