CRT-Adjacent
Terminal Mono
Dark, monospaced, phosphor-green on near-black. A command-line aesthetic for developer products that lean into the terminal.
Palette specimen
Void
#0B0F0C
Panel
#121814
Phosphor
#4ADE80
Amber
#F5B33C
Dim
#5C6B60
Text
#D6E4DA
Specimen of the Terminal Mono system. Not the site palette.
Best for
CLIs, dev-infra dashboards, and hacker-audience landing pages. Signals speed and low-level control.
The contract
The full DESIGN.md. Copy it, or download it into a project root so an agent can build against it.
DESIGN.md
# DESIGN.md - Terminal Mono
A dark, monospaced, CRT-adjacent system. Phosphor green on near-black, everything on a monospace grid. Restraint keeps it from becoming a costume.
## Palette (tokens)
| Token | Value | Use |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `--void` | #0B0F0C | Page background |
| `--panel` | #121814 | Panels, cards, code blocks |
| `--phosphor` | #4ADE80 | Primary accent, prompts, active |
| `--amber` | #F5B33C | Warnings, secondary accent |
| `--text` | #D6E4DA | Body text |
| `--dim` | #5C6B60 | Comments, meta, disabled |
| `--line` | #223026 | Hairline borders |
## Type scale
- Family: one monospace family (for example JetBrains Mono, Berkeley Mono, or system ui-monospace) for everything. No proportional fonts.
- Everything sits on the monospace character grid. Align to it.
- Scale (rem): 0.8125, 0.875, 1, 1.125, 1.375, 1.75, 2.25, 3.
- Prompts and labels use `--phosphor`; comments use `--dim`.
## Spacing grid
Base unit tied to the monospace character cell (roughly 8px). Padding in multiples of the cell. Section padding 48 to 72px. Container max-width 60rem, so lines stay readable.
## Corners and borders
- Corner radius: 0 to 2px. Sharp.
- Borders: 1px `--line`. Optional single-pixel inner glow on focus using `--phosphor` at low opacity, no blur past 2px.
- A faint scanline or noise texture is allowed at very low opacity. Keep it subtle, never animated aggressively.
## Component patterns
- Buttons: bordered, `--phosphor` text on `--panel`, invert to green fill on hover. Prefix primary actions with a `>` or `$`.
- Cards: `--panel` fill, `--line` border, mono headers. Treat them like terminal windows with an optional title bar row.
- Sections: a `$ command`-style label, then output-style content.
## Banned patterns
- Gradients. Even here. Glow is a low-opacity solid, not a gradient.
- Proportional fonts anywhere.
- Bright, saturated non-terminal colors (no hot pink, no electric blue).
- Emojis. Use ASCII or nerd-font glyphs if you must.
- Em dashes. Use a hyphen with spaces.