CardinalDesign AI
A compiler for your design system. Not a generator.
The Token-Constrained Archetype (TCA) System reads messy feature tickets and snaps every spacing and type value onto your tokens. Anything off-scale raises a compile warning and rounds to the nearest legal step — before it reaches engineering.
“Make a card with 15px inside spacing and an 11.5px font.”
- ✕ 15px→token-space-16
- ✕ 11.5px→token-text-12
- TCA-W001 Illegal spacing 15px; snapped → token-space-16.
- TCA-W003 11.5px typography is outside the scale range; clamped → token-text-12.
{"tca":"tca-v1","inputHash":"a8b1e39b","layoutBounds":{},"densityGrids":{},"componentTokens":{"card":{"padding":"token-space-16","fontSize":"token-text-12"}},"warnings":2}
The handoff tax
Every ticket invents a new design system.
Product teams lose a large share of engineering velocity to styling friction at handoff. Arbitrary values break design-system parity and bloat the codebase one override at a time.
- 15px padding on one ticket, 18px on the next, 13px on the one after.
- Font sizes that exist in no type ramp — 11.5px, 15px, 26px.
- Engineers writing one-off CSS overrides for every feature handoff.
Three outputs. Zero randomness.
TCA rejects “vibes.” It is a constraint enforcer: an 8-point spacing scale, a strict type ramp from 12px to 48px, and deterministic rounding rules.
01
Compilation audit matrix
Every padding, gap, width, and type size in the ticket is listed, marked compliant or illegal, and mapped to a variable.
02
Markdown layout blueprint
A paint-free structure grouped into Layout Bounds, Density Grids, and Component Tokens. No colors, borders, or imagery.
03
Production JSON schema
A minified token map your frontend reads directly. Same input, byte-identical output, every run.