Editorial color system

This edition uses an editorial midnight / cobalt / antique-gold palette instead of the previous green-led system. The intent is to keep the warm paper and watercolor illustrations book-like while making route, evidence, and terminal states read as technical signals.

The palette is intentionally role-based and limited to a few families. It follows the USWDS guidance to select a small project token subset rather than expose every system color, and to use color as progressive enhancement rather than the only signal. Normal text pairs were checked against the WCAG AA 4.5:1 baseline: light ink 14.19:1, light muted 5.51:1, light primary 6.16:1, dark ink 15.79:1, dark muted 10.30:1, and dark primary 8.39:1.

Research references:

• WCAG 2.2, 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum)
• USWDS Using color
• USWDS Theme color tokens
• IBM Carbon accessibility color guidance