@cueplusplus/theme-signal

The signal palette for @cueplusplus/ui — dmxhub's studio greys under a signal-orange accent, with a #cccccc ink ceiling because pure white is reserved for selection. A palette is a package here precisely so that it is not the only one: install several, register several, and a theme switcher is an array with more than one entry in it.

Install

The @cueplusplus scope is public on npm and resolves there by default, so there is nothing to configure and no credential to supply — it installs like any other package.

pnpm add @cueplusplus/theme-signal @cueplusplus/theme-base

@cueplusplus/theme-base is the one peer this package declares, and it carries the token contract the palette is written against. A palette on its own paints nothing: install it beside @cueplusplus/ui and its own peers — §2 has that line.

Quick start

The theme stylesheet is the third import, and its position is load-bearing rather than tidy. A theme declares its colours under [data-theme="signal"], which ties with the blank base's bare :root at the same specificity, so the one declared later wins. Put it before styles.css and the blank base paints over it.

/* app/globals.css */
@import "tailwindcss";
@import "@cueplusplus/ui/styles.css";
@import "@cueplusplus/theme-signal/theme.css";

Then register the manifest. themes is the registry the provider may switch between; theme names the one that paints.

import signal from "@cueplusplus/theme-signal";
import { ThemeProvider } from "@cueplusplus/ui/system";

export function Providers({ children }: { children: React.ReactNode }) {
  return (
    <ThemeProvider themes={[signal]} theme="signal">
      {children}
    </ThemeProvider>
  );
}

Importing the package from its root, rather than reaching for its manifest.json subpath, also closes ThemeName to the themes you actually installed — so a misspelt theme value is a type error rather than a page that silently paints the blank base. Add prepaintScript() to <head> with the same themes array, so the first frame is not the defaults flashing past: §4 has it.

What it ships

| Subpath | What it is | | --- | --- | | @cueplusplus/theme-signal | the manifest, as both the default export and manifest | | @cueplusplus/theme-signal/theme.css | the palette — the only file a browser needs | | @cueplusplus/theme-signal/variants.css | the density rungs and font pairings this theme adds. Empty: it adds none | | @cueplusplus/theme-signal/manifest.json | the same manifest as JSON, for a tool that reads rather than imports | | @cueplusplus/theme-signal/package.json | |

Both modes. The manifest is complete with supportsLight: true, so theme.css writes the whole colour contract four times over: [data-theme="signal"] for dark, [data-theme="signal"][data-mode="light"] for light, and both again for [data-mode="system"] inside a prefers-color-scheme query.

Fonts: one, the monospace. The theme block sets its own stack and then hands it to the pairing axis:

--cue-font-theme-mono: "JetBrains Mono", ui-monospace, SFMono-Regular, Menlo, Consolas, monospace;
--cue-font-mono: var(--cue-font-pairing-mono, var(--cue-font-theme-mono));

The second line is the handshake, and it is why the first is safe: a data-font pairing stamped on an ancestor wins over the theme's stack, which in turn wins over the base's.

Sources are src/signal.{dark,light}.tokens.json, colour and type only — no geometry token may appear in a theme. theme.css, variants.css, manifest.json, index.js and index.d.ts are written by cue-theme build and committed; prepack runs cue-theme check, which rebuilds all five in memory and refuses to publish if anything on disk has drifted.

The light source says at the top that it is provisional and synthesized — dmxhub ships dark only — and packaging settles none of that; it moves the same bytes into something that can be versioned when it is settled.

One waived contrast failure: accent-fg/accent in light, white on #d9541a, at 4.01:1 against a floor of 4.5. The light source used to claim that orange had been picked to clear 4.5:1; the measurement disagreed, and theme.config.ts records that rather than papering over it. cue-theme build refuses any failure that is not named there — as it refuses a waiver naming a pair the report does not fail, because a list that can only rot in one direction always does.

@cueplusplus/tokens no longer emits any palette: this package is where the signal colours live. packages/release/test/theme-packages.test.mjs holds this directory's theme.css against packages/release/test/fixtures/pre-migration/signal.css — the stylesheet @cueplusplus/[email protected] actually shipped — byte for byte after the banner, so "the migration moved no colour" stays a thing a gate proves rather than a thing a changelog claims.

Where the rest is

• The theming guide — https://ui.cueplusplus.com/docs/theming. The token vocabulary, the density and mode axes, the other presets, and createTheme() for a palette of your own.
• docs/CONSUMING.md — registry access in full, the peer matrix per subpath, and the table of what a failed install means.
• CHANGELOG.md, in this package — one entry per release, addressed to you rather than to the diff, with a Migrating section on anything that needs an edit. Read it before an upgrade; the version number alone does not say what moved.