UI Elevate

Purpose: Take already-working UI to premium. This is the taste layer — the
layer a command cannot judge. It runs after correctness is proven, and it changes
only what a cited design gap justifies.

Not a convergent loop. Gains plateau after ~3 elevation cycles per surface, and
the call between "keep going" and "already at the bar" is human judgement. This must
not loop to a machine green: findings become beads or direct edits with the human
present. Correctness convergence lives in ac-polish ui mode.

Generic skill — method only, zero app facts. App specifics (design tokens,
routes, seed recipe, deployed URL) come from the consumer manifest and the app's
CORE docs. Never hardcode them here.

Two modes

A route belongs to the mode whose manifest lists it. Read the consumer manifest
(factory.json) and resolve the keys — never a literal path. If the named target is
on the other mode's manifest, stop and switch modes; auditing a public route against
the app spec files the wrong findings.

Bindings — read these from factory.json

Read factory.json, resolve each key, then read the file it names. A missing key is a
consumer setup defect — say so, never fall back to a guessed literal.

The loop

0. BIND     Resolve factory.json keys. Read the design spec first — it is the
            conformance target and the bound on every change.
1. MATRIX   Build the coverage matrix for the mode. app: route × theme × viewport ×
            data-state. site: route × viewport × data-state (no theme axis).
            The cell is the unit of done — an unrendered route is not audited.
2. SEED     Populate realistic data (app). For a genuinely empty site page, the
            live-empty state IS the visitor state — audit it as is.
3. CRITIQUE Read rendered artifacts against references/critique-polish.md (the
            anti-slop rubric) plus the mode's craft files. Score with file:line and
            a concrete fix. Never a vibe summary.
4. ELEVATE  Apply the cited, impact-ranked fixes — highest impact, lowest risk first.
            "Already at the bar → no change" is a PASSING outcome, not a gap to fill.
5. REVIEW   With the human present: accept, reject, or file each finding as a bead.
6. RE-SCORE The changed cells, bounded to the 3-cycle budget.

Three non-negotiables: every edit is bounded to the design spec's tokens · every
change cites a specific gap · never change working code just to have a diff.

The manifesto

1. Consistency beats cleverness. Conform to the existing system before improving it.
2. Detail is the product. Optical alignment, 1px borders, line-height, easing — the gap between "fine" and "premium" lives here.
3. Motion has meaning or it's noise. A transition explains a state change or it is cut.
4. Fast is a feeling. Optimistic UI, skeletons, instant feedback beat a faster backend.
5. Kill the AI tells. Centered-everything, default gradients, emoji bullets, generic imagery, hedge-y copy — all out.
6. Real content, real states. Design for empty, loading, error, long-text and overflow, not the happy path.

Delegation map (orchestrate — do not reimplement)

Supporting documentation

Canonical values come from references/recipes.md; the app's design_spec token
always overrides.

Common mistakes