design system.

consistency-by-convention had failed.

Each surface owned its own buttons, selects, date pickers — drifting visually and behaviorally. Same component, three implementations, three sets of bugs, three accessibility regressions. Centralizing was the only way to make a11y, dark mode, and keyboard parity defaults instead of patches.

tokens before components.

A Tailwind preset shipped before any component — tokens are the contract. Then a three-tier API: primitives (Radix-backed, bring-your-own-state), enhanced (opinionated, batteries-included), and animated icons. Each tier is its own subpath export so apps tree-shake what they don't use.

stability vs. velocity.

Lock tokens early and slow API stabilization, or ship and pay the standardization tax in patches later. I shipped. The recent release history is the receipt — a stretch of commits aligning trigger heights, paddings, and corner radii across components. The system is now mature enough that “doesn't match the other components” is treated as a defect. That's the moment a component library becomes a design system.

the kit.