Novolis Docs
novolis-governance / graphical-profile.md

Novolis Graphical Profile

Policies that keep the org coherent

dotnetgovernancenovolis

The Novolis Graphical Profile is the required chrome contract for product UI. It is authored once in `build/graphical-profile/profile.json` and projected into the Avalonia and MAUI UI libraries.

Source of truth

The mark in `.github/brand/logo-icon.svg` is the only color source. Every chrome role is either a stop from that SVG or a shade/tint of those same cyan–blue–purple hues. The mark has no navy, teal, gold, red, or neutral gray; those hues stay out of the profile.

Identity stops, used as-is:

  • cyan identity and focus: #2FDFFF (mark-cyan)
  • blue navigation and open: #237CFF (mark-left)
  • purple commit action: #8F37FF (mark-right)
  • sky informational status: #0BA8FF (mark-left-stem)
  • warning: #35D8FF / #0677D9 (star cyan / left-stem deep)
  • danger: #B246FF / #6138D9 (lower magenta / right-stem deep)

Canvas, surface, border, and type are nuances of #0677D9, #2FDFFF, #0997FF, #4D86FF, and #6138D9. On-fill type is a high tint of #2FDFFF, not an outside white.

Product content may retain its own colors for maps, drawings, documents, video, data visualization, and game-world entities.

The profile is a visual grammar, not a theme dump:

  • one violet commit action per view; blue is for opening and navigation
  • one compact trailing status or control in a header
  • one vertical scroll owner
  • eyebrow, title, one muted sentence, then the content
  • monospace only for evidence, raw values, and diagnostics

The shared chrome uses Segoe UI, a 28px page title, 18px cards, 42px touch targets, 44px icon controls, 8px control radius, 14px badge radius, 16px mark radius, 18px card radius, 22px primary-action radius, and one-pixel structural strokes. There are no shadows, blur, or gradients in the chrome.

Consumer packages

Avalonia applications consume Novolis.Avalonia.GraphicalProfile. MAUI applications consume Novolis.Maui.GraphicalProfile. Blazor applications consume Novolis.Blazor.GraphicalProfile (generated --ngp-* CSS). The packages use the same role names and values; they remain separate because Avalonia, MAUI, and Blazor are isolated UI islands.

Required consumers are every Avalonia or MAUI executable host and every Avalonia/MAUI chrome library: product apps, labs, utilities, UI templates, and other UI executables. Opt out only with NovolisGraphicalProfile=false on a non-UI process. Map tiles, sketch ink, star fields, video, and game entities may keep local colors.

Avalonia applications call GraphicalProfile.Install(this) from their Application initialization. The package supplies Ngp.* resources for ThemeVariant.Light and ThemeVariant.Dark, plus class-based styles.

MAUI applications call GraphicalProfile.Install(this) from their Application constructor. The package installs dynamic resources and updates them when the requested application theme changes.

The package owns the shared shell only: brand lockup, page hierarchy, fields, cards, navigation, status chips, and action buttons. Maps, drawings, documents, video, game-world entities, and other domain surfaces remain product-owned.

Binding rules

Use the profile for application backgrounds, surfaces, borders, text, navigation, buttons, cards, fields, status chips, and validation copy. Use the profile typography and geometry values for chrome.

Keep these values local to the product:

  • drawing and sketch ink
  • map tiles and map overlays
  • game-world, firm, road, and faction colors
  • remote video pixels
  • document syntax highlighting

The governance verifier checks that UI projects reference the correct package. It does not reject domain content colors.

Platform and delivery map

The graphical profile enters at the UI edge of the closed platform spine:

Math → Physics → Simulation → Gaming → Avalonia / MAUI → products

Math, physics, simulation, and gaming remain headless and do not reference Avalonia or MAUI. Avalonia and MAUI are separate UI islands; an executable host chooses one. Product hosts, tools, utilities, and labs compose the libraries at the edge.

The delivery surfaces follow the same separation:

  • GitHub Packages carries continuous 2026.1.* package builds.
  • GitHub Releases carries installable products, Android bundles, and other

deliberate artifacts.

  • Library merges promote packages to nuget.org. A GitHub Release does not.

Updating the profile

Edit profile.json, run:

dotnet run --file d:\novolis\novolis-governance\scripts\Export-GraphicalProfile.cs
dotnet run --file d:\novolis\novolis-governance\scripts\verify-graphical-profile.cs

The exporter updates the generated token source in the Avalonia and MAUI libraries, writes d:\novolis\.github\site\assets\profile.css for the portfolio docs site, and writes d:\novolis\novolis-blazor\src\Novolis.Blazor.GraphicalProfile\wwwroot\css\graphical-profile.css for Blazor hosts. Repo banners are regenerated from the same JSON:

dotnet run --project d:\novolis\novolis-tools\src\Novolis.Tools.Docs.Cli\Novolis.Tools.Docs.Cli.csproj --no-launch-profile -- marketing --root d:\novolis --skip-readmes

The verifier compares generated tokens with the JSON, checks UI host package references and GraphicalProfile.Install / UseGraphicalProfile calls across apps, labs, utilities, templates, and Treffly, and requires a banner SVG for every cataloged repo.