# Ontology 2.0

Ontology is Clark Valberg’s canonical personal design system. Its governing axiom is: **Make the work legible.** It is editorial in hierarchy, technical in precision, and restrained in expression.

## Authority

The authority chain is `design-system.json` → `tokens/design-tokens.tokens.json` → generated adapters and public release assets. This document explains intent; it does not override machine values. Transformative Ontology is credited as a source of operating grammar, but its identity and wordmark remain separate.

## Non-negotiable rules

- Use Inter: 900 for rare monuments, 500 for claims and operational headings, 400 for headings and body, and 300 only for oversized editorial ledes.
- Use IBM Plex Mono 500 for labels, ledgers, navigation, dates, source lines, and technical state.
- Use black, white, ghost silver, briefing paper, and one semantic green. Green means active, current, verified, live, unlocked, or terminal. It is never decoration.
- Use 1px rules, square geometry, no shadows, and no gradients.
- Use a 14px root, 1440px maximum field, 12 desktop columns, 80/48/24px responsive gutters, an 80px header, and a 240px persistent desktop rail.
- Support both light and dark modes. Bundle exact local fonts and prevent runtime font requests.
- Media defaults to `object-fit: contain`. Cropping requires explicit art direction. Never enlarge a source beyond useful legibility.
- Recompose for mobile; do not merely shrink desktop composition.

## Composition

Start with the answer. Separate observation, pattern, implication, and strategy. Paper fields support reading. Carbon fields contain systems, media, thresholds, and decisive conclusions. Prefer rows, ledgers, and rules to generic cards. Every component ships with default, hover, focus, active, disabled, loading, error, empty, long-copy, missing-media, locked, and unlocked behavior where applicable.

## Motion

Frame zero must be complete. One idea per scene. Later elements enter at final geometry. Use restrained one-time entrance and short cross-dissolves; honor `prefers-reduced-motion`. Motion must never rescue an incoherent still.

## Literary profile

The former serif system survives only as the named `ontology-literary` profile for books, Torah, kuntresim, and genuine long-form reading. It is not a fallback for product, web, briefing, or presentation work. Every use declares the profile in the artifact manifest.

## Adoption

Read `AGENTS.md` and `/skill/ontology/SKILL.md`; consume `/house.css` and the local fonts; run `ontology check <path>`; then verify the rendered result at the canonical viewports and in both modes. The checker is a guardrail, not a substitute for visual judgment.