design system
Tokens, rules, and patterns. One place, no guessing.
60/30/10 split. Background tokens dominate (60%), ink + border tokens support (30%), blue accent appears sparingly (10%).
Three families, each with a distinct semantic role. Serif for editorial content, mono for UI labels and metadata, sans for body prose.
Consistent hashing distributes keys across nodes using a circular key space. Each node owns a range of the ring, and keys map to the nearest clockwise node.
func (r *Ring) Add(node string) {
hash := r.hashFn(node)
r.nodes = append(r.nodes, hash)
}
Software engineer focused on distributed systems and developer tooling. I write about things I build and things I learn.
| token / element | size | family | usage |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.65rem | 10.4px | mono | .tag — smallest label |
| 0.68rem | 10.9px | mono | .post-meta, .article-meta, .project-lang, .figcaption |
| 0.7rem | 11.2px | mono | .footer-copy, .footer-links, .section-num |
| 0.72rem | 11.5px | mono | .hero-label, .article-meta |
| 0.75rem | 12px | mono | .nav-links, .btn, .article-back |
| 0.82rem | 13.1px | mono / sans | pre code, .post-desc |
| 0.85rem | 13.6px | mono | .nav-name |
| 0.9rem | 14.4px | mono | .project-name |
| 0.92rem | 14.7px | sans | .project-desc, .section-desc |
| 1rem | 16px | sans / serif | body base, .hero-bio, .post-title |
| 1.05rem | 16.8px | serif | .article-body |
| 1.15rem | 18.4px | serif | article h3 |
| 1.3rem | 20.8px | serif | .section-title |
| 1.4rem | 22.4px | serif | article h2 |
| clamp(1.6–2.2rem) | 25.6–35.2px | serif | article h1 |
| clamp(2.2–3.2rem) | 35.2–51.2px | serif | hero h1 |
No spacing scale variable system. Values are used contextually. Scale below reflects every distinct value found in the codebase.
| property | value | element |
|---|---|---|
| max-width | 900px | .container — global content width |
| max-width | 520px | .hero-bio — prevents overlong bio lines |
| max-width | 100% | article body img |
| breakpoint | 600px | only media query in codebase |
| --radius | 4px | img, pre, swatch containers |
| border-radius | 2px | .btn, .tag |
| border-radius | 3px | inline code |
Live components using exact token values. Interact with them as they appear on the site.
projects: spaces · writing: hyphens
Sharded in-memory key-value store. FNV-64a hashing across per-shard RWMutex locks, custom TCP server, full OpenTelemetry instrumentation.
software engineer
The goal of a distributed system is to make a network of computers appear as a single coherent system.
Editorial and design constraints inferred from the codebase. Treat these as invariants when adding new content or components.
Use --blue only for interactive elements (links, buttons, accents) and the hero-label. Keep it rare — 10% of the visual surface.
Don't use --blue for decorative purposes or large fills. Don't introduce new color values — all colors must map to existing tokens.
Use serif (Lora) for editorial headings and article body text. Use mono (IBM Plex Mono) for UI labels, metadata, code, and navigation. Use sans (IBM Plex Sans) for body prose and descriptions.
Don't swap family roles (no mono for article body, no serif for nav). Don't use font sizes outside the established scale. Don't add font weights beyond 300, 400, 500, 600.
Navigation links: lowercase. Hero label: UPPERCASE (via CSS, not markup). Section titles: Title Case. Footer copy and button labels: lowercase. Article titles: Title Case.
Don't use ALL CAPS in markup — apply text-transform: uppercase in CSS only. Don't mix casing within the same component type.
Use · (·) as separator in meta strings. Format: Jan 2006 · 8 min. Back links: ← back. No trailing periods in labels.
Don't use dashes, pipes, or commas as separators in meta. Don't write "read more", "click here", or "minutes" (abbreviate to "min").
Use semantic HTML: <section> for page zones, <article> for full post pages, <nav> for navigation, <figure>/<figcaption> for captioned images, <blockquote> for quotes.
Don't use <div> where a semantic element exists. Don't skip heading levels (h1 → h3). Don't use more than one h1 per page.
Use gap for flex/grid layouts. Use margin-top (not bottom) for flow spacing inside article body. Use padding: X 0 for section vertical rhythm.
Don't invent new spacing values — use the existing scale. Don't use margin-bottom for article body flow elements (use margin-top with lobotomized owl * + *).
Use --border for structural dividers (nav, section, footer). Use --border-soft for item-level dividers (projects, posts). Use border-top on sections, border-bottom on list items.
Don't use --border for subtle item separators — that breaks the hierarchy. Don't add borders to elements that don't have them in the source.