Vellum editorial

Build editorial documentation sites with the Vellum design system. Two theme variants (warm parchment, dark space), OKLCH color science, three-font typographic hierarchy, 35 semantic components. Static HTML with zero build step — deploys to Cloudflare Pages, GitHub Pages, or any static host.

Creative Direction

Two theme variants, each with a distinct character:

Warm (default): "Vellum manuscript" — warm cream backgrounds with a subtle SVG crosshatch texture, deep ink-brown text, copper accents. Authoritative, like a well-made journal.

Dark: "Space archive" — deep blue-black backgrounds with CSS starfield (box-shadow stars + nebula gradients), bright gold copper accents, cool blue-gray text. Atmospheric, like a command center or digital archaeology site.

Both themes share the same typography, component library, and layout system. The palette transformation is purely in :root custom properties — no structural CSS changes needed.

If the minoan-frontend-design skill is available, read it for broader aesthetic principles. Vellum encodes those principles into a concrete design system. Pages built with Vellum should score 16+/20 on /design-audit and 28+/40 on /design-critique.

Quick Start

Scaffold a new project:

python3 ~/.claude/skills/vellum-editorial/scripts/init_project.py <project-name> \
  [--style editorial|instrument] [--template landing|one-pager] \
  [--pages N] [--theme warm|dark] [--auth] [--no-auth] \
  [--password <string>] [--deploy-ready] [--no-deploy-ready] \
  [--audio] [--no-audio]

This generates a deploy-ready site with CSS, starter HTML, OG/Twitter social meta tags, a light/dark theme toggle, and optionally a client-side auth gate and ambient audio player. By default, --deploy-ready generates _headers (CF Pages security headers) and robots.txt (crawl prevention). The --theme dark flag transforms the palette to a dark space aesthetic with CSS starfield background. Open index.html in a browser — fonts load from Google Fonts, icons from Phosphor Icons CDN.

Styles control the visual aesthetic:

• editorial (default) — Bodoni Moda / Source Serif 4 typography, SVG crosshatch texture. Scholarly manuscript character.
• instrument — Manrope typography, grid-dot texture. Precision instrument panel character for technical product overviews.

Templates control the content scaffolding:

• landing (default) — Simple 3-section page with overview, features, comparison.
• one-pager — 8-section technical overview with TOC, state-card grids, configuration matrix, phase timeline, and deployment section.

Design System

Three fonts: Bodoni Moda (display/headlines, italic), Source Serif 4 (body text), Inconsolata (monospace/labels/badges). All loaded from Google Fonts.

OKLCH palette with 50+ custom properties organized as base / bg / border triples for each semantic color. The core palette — --ink, --copper, --bg, --bg-warm, --bg-card, --border, --text-body, --text-label, --text-muted, --ghost — defines the vellum character. Navigation state (--nav-active / --nav-active-bg / --nav-active-border), severity tiers (--dealbreaker, --high, --moderate), platform colors (--subq, --claude, --cursor, --codex), and status indicators (--planned, --building, --shipped, --blocked) extend it. Content organized by era or category uses additional --era-* color triples.

Full token reference: references/design-tokens.md.

Component Library

35 components across 7 groups: layout (breadcrumb, page-nav, header, section, footer), cards (state-card, hook-card, cap-panel, further-card, quote-card, req-card), data display (matrix, matrix-note, glossary, ring, debugger-panel), indicators (status-dot, status-chip, tier-badge, chip), editorial (toc, pullquote, savings-callout, supersession, advantage-row, phase-timeline), intelligence (dossier, stat-stack, utterance, editorial-note, entity-flow, fact-block, sub-navigation, source-list), and media (subject-intro, stat-bar, hero-image with lightbox, gallery/masonry-grid, audio-player). Each supports multiple color variants following the semantic palette.

Copy-paste HTML snippets for every component: references/component-catalog.md.

Page Architecture

Six page patterns:

Landing page: breadcrumb → page-nav → header (icon, tag, h1, subtitle) → main (numbered sections with ghost section-num) → footer

Deep-dive page: breadcrumb (with back link) → page-nav → header (logo, tag, h1, subtitle) → main (TOC → numbered sections) → footer

Section hub: breadcrumb → page-nav → sub-nav → header (badge) → main (key findings + further-card grid) → footer

Profile dossier: breadcrumb → page-nav → sub-nav → header → subject-intro or editorial-note → primary dossier → secondary dossiers → sources → footer

Feature comparison: breadcrumb → page-nav → sub-nav → header → TOC → comparison panels with dimension grids → matrix → sources → footer

Analysis/implications: breadcrumb → page-nav → sub-nav → header → TOC → state-card grid (gaps) → advantage-rows → recommendations → sources → footer

Every page includes: skip link (<a href="#main" class="skip-link">), _shared.css (core system), _components.css (components), Google Fonts preconnect, Phosphor Icons CDN. Auth gate (_auth.js) loads before body content when enabled. Audio player (_audio-player.js) loads at end of body when enabled.

Full page structure patterns: references/page-architecture.md.

Customization

Adapt for a different client by editing :root custom properties in _shared.css:

1. Theme selection (scaffold time): Use --theme dark to start with a dark palette, or accept the default warm theme.
2. Color swap (~5 min): Change --copper hue, adjust --ink/--bg warmth, update platform colors to match client brands.
3. Semantic rename (~30 min): Rename --subq → --brand-primary, update corresponding CSS class variants.
4. Era/category colors: Add --era-* triples (base / bg / border) for content organized by time period, category, or entity type. See design-tokens.md for the pattern and lightness guidelines.
5. Structural additions: Add new component variants following the base / bg / border triple pattern and BEM-like naming.

The 50+ CSS custom properties are the entire theming surface. No build step, no preprocessor.

Auth Gate

Optional client-side courtesy gate using FNV-1a hashing with sessionStorage. Not real security — a visibility gate for non-public docs. Set a password at scaffold time with --password <string> — the init script computes the FNV-1a hash automatically and writes the correct constant into _auth.js. Each project gets a unique sessionStorage key (vellum_auth_{project-name}) to avoid cross-site collisions.

Diagrams (Optional)

Vellum pages can include Mermaid diagrams rendered as inline SVGs via the beautiful-mermaid skill. No JavaScript dependency — diagrams are static SVG inlined at build time.

Generate a vellum-themed SVG:

printf 'graph TD\n  A --> B --> C' | \
  node ~/.claude/skills/beautiful-mermaid/scripts/mermaid.mjs \
  -f svg -t vellum --transparent -o diagram.svg -

Inline into a diagram panel:

<figure class="diagram-panel">
  <p class="diagram-panel__label">System Architecture</p>
  <!-- Paste SVG output here (remove width/height, keep viewBox) -->
  <figcaption class="diagram-panel__caption">Request flow from API gateway to storage</figcaption>
</figure>

The vellum theme uses cream/ink/copper colors matching the design system. The --transparent flag lets the panel's --bg-card background show through. Supported diagram types: flowchart, state, sequence, class, ER. See references/component-catalog.md for component variants (--copper, --bleed).

QA Workflow

After building pages, run these passes in order:

1. /design-audit — Technical checks (a11y, performance, responsive, theming, anti-patterns)
2. /design-critique — UX review (Nielsen's heuristics, cognitive load, persona red flags)
3. /design-polish — Final pass (alignment, spacing, interaction states, transitions)

Deploy to Cloudflare Pages

After building and QA:

1. Create project (first time only):

   wrangler pages project create <project-name> --production-branch main
   

2. Deploy:

   wrangler pages deploy <project-dir> --project-name <project-name>
   

3. Verify headers:

   curl -sI https://<project-name>.pages.dev/ | grep -iE 'x-robots|x-frame|content-security'
   

The scaffolded _headers and robots.txt handle security and crawl prevention automatically. Use --no-deploy-ready to skip these files for local-only development.

Social Preview (OG Image)

Every scaffolded page includes OG and Twitter Card meta tags pointing to og-image.png. Generate a 1200x630 OG image with ImageMagick:

magick -size 1200x630 xc:'#111111' \
  -gravity West -font Inconsolata-Bold -pointsize 52 \
  -fill '#C4956A' -annotate +140+0 'Project Title' \
  -pointsize 22 -fill '#8A8A8A' -annotate +140+50 'Subtitle line' \
  og-image.png

Or use /badge-generator for a medallion-style icon, then composite onto the dark background. Test the preview by pasting the deployed URL into Slack or the Twitter Card validator.

Anti-Patterns

Never use border-left accent stripes on cards — use ::before top-bar (like state-card). Never use gradient text (background-clip: text). Never use system-ui or default fonts. Always include skip-link and prefers-reduced-motion. Break up sequences of more than 6 state-cards with a pullquote or section break.

References

File	When to consult
references/design-tokens.md	Building new components or customizing the palette
references/component-catalog.md	Need HTML snippets for any component
references/page-architecture.md	Setting up page structure, nav, TOC, or glossary
references/advanced-patterns.md	Ghost watermarks, asymmetric grids, fluid typography, opacity hierarchy, logo handling