Brand · Field Manual

Names, not noise.

Wordmark, color, typography, voice, and social assets. The vocabulary Heddle uses to recognize itself.

Logo

The wordmark.

HEDDLE.

Wordmark

Set in Heddle Loom Mono at its heaviest weight. The terminal knot, a diamond drawn by the ss01 stylistic set, stands in for the period and is part of the mark. On the social cards it carries the ember. Every appearance of the name is also a complete sentence. Never remove the knot.

Monogram

Six-column mark. Five graphite verticals; one ember line spelling HEDDLE in morse: .... . -.. -.. .-.. .. Used at favicon scale and as the in-page ornament.

Usage rules

Clear space: Padding equal to the height of one stroke on all sides of the wordmark or mark.
Minimum size: Wordmark: 80px wide. Monogram: 24px square.
Don't: Rotate, stretch, recolor with gradients, add drop shadows, or remove the knot.
Background: Paper, ink, char. Never on busy imagery. Ember stays ember in both modes.

Profile images

Social avatars.

Square: 400 × 400

GitHub, LinkedIn. Morse mark + wordmark, sized for legibility at avatar scale.

Round: 400 × 400

X / Twitter, Discord. Just the mark. Minimal at small sizes.

Banners

Social headers.

Color

Palette.

Warm paper above, char below, ember as the bridge. Switch the theme, and ember stays exactly the same in both modes.

Paper --paper Default light surface

Vellum --vellum Subtle panel

Ink --ink Primary text

Graphite --graphite Borders, secondary

Mist --mist Captions, footnotes

Ember --ember Accent: large text only

Ember deep --ember-deep Hover, AA-safe

Char --char Dark-mode background

Accessibility rules

Ember on text: Permitted on large text only: ≥18px non-bold or ≥14px bold (WCAG large-text rule).
Hover states: Use --ember-deep on paper (passes 4.5:1) and the lighter --ember-deep in dark mode.
Hyperlinks: Ink with a 1px underline at 0.15em offset. Never ember.
Body text: Always --ink on light, --paper on dark. Never the accent.

Typography

Type system.

Display & headlines: Heddle Loom Mono

Version control for agent work.

Mono headlines feel like terminal output, which is exactly the energy. Used at weight 800, tracking -0.04em at display, -0.02em at section.

Body: Heddle Loom Serif

A serif designed for editorial reading on screens. Heddle is the kind of tool that ships with a printed manual; the body type carries that register everywhere: release notes, security pages, footnotes, captions.

17px / 1.6 line height. Use var(--font-body).

Italic accent: Heddle Loom Serif Italic

scales, clarity, signing

For the emotionally loaded word in a headline. Sparingly. Color: --accent (ember).

Code, IDs, paths: Heddle Loom Mono

heddle/objects/attribution.rs

Same family as display, weight 500. Semantic use only. Never decorative.

See the full Heddle Loom specimen.

Components

Buttons, fields, chips.

Every interactive element on Heddle inherits the same field-manual register: mono labels, rectangular geometry on a 3 / 6 / 10 / 14 radius scale, ember accents that only mark state. Never decoration.

Buttons

Mono labels at 0.84rem / weight 700, letter-spacing −0.01em. Padding 0.85rem × 1.35rem. Radius 10px. Ink-on-paper for primary; ghost outline for secondary. Never serif.

Get in. Open app Get access

Family: var(--font-mono)
Size: 0.84rem · button-sm 0.78rem
Weight: 700
Tracking: -0.01em
Radius: 10px · button-sm 6px
Padding: 0.85rem 1.35rem

Form fields

Vellum surface, 1px stroke, subtle inset top edge so the field reads as carved into the page. Mono input text. Focus state swaps to ember border with a 3px ember-tint ring.

Name Email

Family: var(--font-mono) · 0.92rem
Surface: var(--vellum)
Stroke: 1px var(--stroke)
Radius: 6px
Padding: 11px 13px
Focus ring: 3px var(--accent-tint)

Chips & tags

Small mono labels with 3px radius. Used for state markers (MERGE, SHIPPED, INVARIANT) and inline badges (HUMAN, model chips). Always uppercase or lowercase mono. Never title case.

MERGE HUMAN INVARIANT anan

Family: var(--font-mono)
Size: 0.62rem – 0.74rem
Tracking: 0.14em uppercase
Radius: 3px

Radius scale

Four steps. Off-scale values fragment the system; stay on the scale.

3px: Chips, tags, micro-badges
6px: Inputs, small buttons, theme-cycle
10px: Standard buttons, code panels, list rows
14px: Cards, large surfaces, code-panel pre

Voice

How we write.

01
Direct

Technical, second-person. Write to a staff engineer. Never explain what they already know.
02
Outcome-first

Lead with what the reader gets, not how it works. Identity before mechanism.
03
Declarative

State facts. No exclamation marks. No "excited to announce." Periods, not questions.
04
Precise

Numbers, specifics, named concepts. Avoid "seamlessly," "easily," "powerful."
05
Calm

Heddle doesn't shout. It states. The reader recognizes quality without being told.
06
Never platform

Heddle is a tool, a system, a substrate, an engine. Never a platform, the laziest word in dev-tool marketing.
07
Speak in the weave

Heddle is named after the loom part that lifts warps. When describing how things stay attached, prefer the weave: woven, carried, threaded, bound. Avoid travels, lives, sits, lands. Motion words miss the point. Reasoning isn't journeying alongside the code; it's woven into it.

Taglines

Primary: Version control for agent work.
Pillar: The unit is the task.
Manifesto: Names, not noise.
Relationship: Repo layer, not tool layer.
Aspirational: The record is always yours.
Technical: Immutable history. Stable change IDs. Explicit agent attribution.
Short: Version control for agent work. Nothing disappears.
Closer: Made carefully.

Names, not noise.

Usage rules

Accessibility rules

Direct

Outcome-first

Declarative

Precise

Calm

Never platform

Speak in the weave

Taglines