The Colors panel joins the palette — the combo ratified, and each anchor composes the halves it needs

Four rulings close Redesign Contradiction 3452893f (2026-08-06): the in-app
escape hatch is ratified in full, reversing 2026-07-29's palette-only rule —
the combo's Other… opens the system Colors panel, a pick landing on a palette
color stores the name, anything else the hex. Free-picked colors change no
contrast story: they land on the same runtime ink computation hand-written hex
always got (10 amended to say so; no warning surface is owed). Anchor
ownership: the card sidebar's background story is the combo alone — the well
grid's background half stays with the other anchors (StyleEditorView gains
showsBackground beside showsSymbols; the popover's symbol half already went to
its inline SymbolPicker). Quick-style recents stay palette-vocabulary — a
panel pick never enters them.

Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_014PtZdPwqZuqEDLc6wZMtEy

DESIGN/10-accessibility.md

@@ -45,7 +45,7 @@ The stance is committed in 00-vision.md: **accessibility is a requirement of "na
 
 - **Full relative scaling** (decided): relative text styles everywhere, no fixed point sizes. Card face, lane header, and masonry metrics derive from font metrics, so layout survives the largest system text sizes; the no-horizontal-scroll invariant is untouched (lane count is the user's choice; lanes scroll vertically), and 03-board-ui.md's graceful-truncation rules apply at every scale.
 - **Board zoom is that scaling's user-facing control** (settled 2026-08-02; behavior in 03-board-ui.md ▸ Layout, rows in 11-command-nexus.md). macOS ships no system text-size setting, so the commitment above had nothing to move it — the point size the whole board derives from is read once and never changes. View ▸ Zoom In / Zoom Out / Actual Size supply the multiplier: one ladder, one effective body size, and every em multiple and every text style scaling off it together. This is an accessibility feature before it is a convenience one, which is why it is a first-class menu command with a chord rather than a setting buried in a pane, and why **the strip's own truncation rules are the acceptance test** — 03's graceful-truncation promise "at every scale" is only checkable now that a scale exists. **A zoom change announces its new level** ("Zoom 125%") through the ordinary announcement path: it is chrome, not information — nothing about the board's meaning changes — so no label, value, or trait anywhere else moves with it.
-- **Contrast is pinned to WCAG AA.** Lane and card colors render as edge accents (03-board-ui.md's top-edge band / left-edge stripe), so text never sits on them — they are supplementary decoration, never the sole carrier of information, and carry no text-contrast obligation. The ≥ 4.5:1 automatic-contrast rule binds where text does sit on a user-chosen color: the **board** background (palette pairs verified at design time; arbitrary hex computes its text color at runtime against that threshold). An `#RRGGBBAA` background with alpha computes against the color **composited over its effective backdrop** in the active appearance (the board's over the window background; light and dark resolve differently), recomputed on appearance change. Palette names and hex share one ink-selection code path — the palette's AA claim is pinned by a computed-contrast test over all 12 backgrounds in both appearances (ratified 2026-07-29). **The AA obligation binds the primary label tier** (ruled 2026-07-29): the ink seam moves the whole label hierarchy with the primary, and subordinate tiers (.secondary, .quaternary) inherit the system vocabulary's own contrast posture, which sits below 4.5:1 on any background including the system's — the platform-standard reading; the strict path for users who need more is Increase Contrast, which raises accents and washes to full alpha (▸ Visual accommodations). Increase Contrast strengthens borders and the selection indicator.
+- **Contrast is pinned to WCAG AA.** Lane and card colors render as edge accents (03-board-ui.md's top-edge band / left-edge stripe), so text never sits on them — they are supplementary decoration, never the sole carrier of information, and carry no text-contrast obligation. The ≥ 4.5:1 automatic-contrast rule binds where text does sit on a user-chosen color: the **board** background (palette pairs verified at design time; arbitrary hex computes its text color at runtime against that threshold). The 2026-08-06 color-combo reversal (03 ▸ Styling ▸ Controls) changes none of this: a panel-picked color is stored as the palette name when it lands on one, else as hex, and either spelling renders through the same runtime ink seam — in-app picking gained the freedom hand-editing always had, and the ink math was already waiting for it. No warning surface exists or is owed; the app's answer to a low-contrast pick is to choose readable ink, not to argue. An `#RRGGBBAA` background with alpha computes against the color **composited over its effective backdrop** in the active appearance (the board's over the window background; light and dark resolve differently), recomputed on appearance change. Palette names and hex share one ink-selection code path — the palette's AA claim is pinned by a computed-contrast test over all 12 backgrounds in both appearances (ratified 2026-07-29). **The AA obligation binds the primary label tier** (ruled 2026-07-29): the ink seam moves the whole label hierarchy with the primary, and subordinate tiers (.secondary, .quaternary) inherit the system vocabulary's own contrast posture, which sits below 4.5:1 on any background including the system's — the platform-standard reading; the strict path for users who need more is Increase Contrast, which raises accents and washes to full alpha (▸ Visual accommodations). Increase Contrast strengthens borders and the selection indicator.
 - **State is never color-alone**: selection is a ring plus trait, cut-pending is dim plus stated value, the trash header is hatched plus labeled — all already patterned; kept as a rule.
 - **Reduce Motion is a per-voice rule, not a feature list** (settled): movement animations go **instant**, appear/disappear transitions go **crossfade**, uniformly — every animated surface derives its reduced variant from its voice, the store's reload seam included (the largest animated surface in the app), so new surfaces never need individual rulings. The named cases — reflow-on-drag, search animate-out, the drag replica's lift and settle transitions (its 1:1 tracking never animates, like the selection marquee, which needs no variant — 03-board-ui.md ▸ Motion), the lane-resize rubber-band feedback (03-board-ui.md ▸ Lane), trash animations — are applications of the rule, not the rule itself. **Reduce Transparency**: glass underlays go solid, wherever they appear.
 - **Full Keyboard Access** (independent of VoiceOver): the board is one tab stop with arrow-key navigation within; every control — lane buttons, popover, card window, welcome — is Tab-reachable. **"Every control" is literal and includes banner-row buttons** (ruled 2026-07-29): a Dismiss or Cancel on a banner must be a Tab stop — FKA serves sighted keyboard-only users, to whom VO custom actions are invisible, and Cancel on an in-progress operation is exactly the control that cannot require a pointer. This coexists with the VoiceOver presentation (one combined row-sentence with Dismiss/Cancel as custom actions): the AX combine and the FKA focus loop are independent surfaces; the implementation may uncombine conditionally under FKA if the focus system requires it.