Pixel-sampled against the reference screenshots: the beloved classic
light-mode look is the vivid authored golds rendered essentially raw
(#FFD700 shows as bright #F5C242) — transparent terminal profiles apply no
contrast lift of their own, and pre-darkening every foreground to WCAG 4.5
produced the reported mustard mud. Light-mode display floors become
near-invisible rescues only (1.18 display / 1.6 semantic; dark keeps
1.45/2.2); the default skin ships a fills-only light_colors OVERLAY
(polarity-flip the navy menu/status fills, foregrounds inherit the vivid
colors), and themeForSkin merges polarity overlays instead of replacing.
Palette audit reworked: base colors audited fully, overlays for valid keys
and fill polarity.
The desktop color-mix system, ported: a theme is a handful of identity
SEEDS (text, primary, accent, border, status hues); every secondary tone
(muted, label, surfaces, chips, selection) is a color-mix derivative
against the real terminal background. lib/color.ts consolidates the
primitives (parse/mix/luminance/contrast/retone + xterm.js's multiplicative
liftForContrast). Knobs are grid-search fitted so the math reproduces the
classic hand-tuned literals (contract-tested). The display shim renders
authored palettes RAW and only rescues near-invisible colors. Boot reads
the last resolved theme from $HERMES_HOME/tui-theme-boot.json so the first
frame paints in the right palette (no default-dark flash), and the
placeholder cursor follows the bubbles textinput pattern.
OSC-11 asks the terminal for its actual background at startup (env
heuristics are blind on xterm.js hosts) and the theme re-derives against
the answer: desktop-contract adaptation (contrast floors + fill polarity),
a shared list-row selection primitive instead of per-picker panel fills,
paired light_colors/dark_colors skin blocks with a machine audit, and a
/theme auto|light|dark pin (display.tui_theme) for hosts whose probe lies.
E2E coverage for the OSC reply chain + /theme-info diagnostics.
Brooklyn Nicholson