Shadow Scale
Replace ad hoc shadows with a small set tied to what each surface actually is.
What it adds
A fixed ladder of shadow tokens, each named for an elevation role rather than a blur radius.
What your agent is told to do
5
What your agent is told to do
5-
1
Collect every shadow currently declared anywhere in the app and group them by what they sit on — a resting card, a hovered card, a dropdown, a dialog, a toast. Most apps have a dozen near-identical values that collapse into four or five roles.
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2
Name each step for its role, not its appearance. A token called menu tells the next person which surfaces may use it; a token called shadow-md-2 does not.
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Use a single light source for the whole scale, so offset, blur, and spread grow together as elevation rises. Two shadows lit from different directions on the same screen read as a rendering bug.
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4
Give the dark theme its own values rather than reusing the light ones. A soft black shadow on a near-black surface is invisible, so dark surfaces need a raised surface colour, a border, or both to carry the elevation.
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5
Do not let shadow be the only thing separating a surface from its background. Windows high-contrast mode, forced-colours mode, and print all strip shadows entirely, and anything relying on one alone dissolves into the page.
Edge cases it handles
7
Edge cases it handles
7- In dark themes a black shadow against a dark background conveys nothing. Elevation there has to come from a lighter surface tint or a border, with the shadow reduced to a faint halo at most.
- Any surface that uses a shadow to mark its boundary needs a fallback boundary — a background shift or a hairline border — because forced-colours mode and high-contrast settings remove shadows without warning.
- Shadows that disagree about light direction or softness look broken when they appear together. A dropdown lit from above beside a card lit from the left is immediately noticeable even to users who cannot say why.
- Print and forced-colours output should flatten the scale to nothing, or to a single hairline, rather than attempting to render a blurred shadow as a grey smear.
- Stacked elevations compound: a popover inside a dialog inside a sticky panel will render three shadows on top of each other unless nested surfaces are allowed to drop back to a flat treatment.
- Shadows on large full-width surfaces are expensive to repaint during scroll, so a sticky header with a heavy shadow will cost frames on lower-end devices.
- The elevation role a shadow claims must match the paint order it actually gets — that ordering belongs to Elevation Layer Map and Z-Index Registry, and a shadow token must never be used to fake a stacking fix.
Definition of done
8
Definition of done
8- The app has one shadow scale of no more than six steps, each named for an elevation role.
- No component declares a raw shadow value outside the scale.
- Every shadow in the scale shares a single light direction and a consistent softness progression.
- Dark theme surfaces are distinguishable from their background without relying on the shadow.
- Forced-colours mode and print render every elevated surface with a visible boundary.
- Nested elevated surfaces do not stack three or more shadows on the same visual edge.
- The feature matches the existing design system.
- No existing functionality is broken.
Related features
Z-Index Registry
Z-Index Registry
Keep every stacking value in one file so nobody has to guess a bigger number.
What it does
A single source of named z-index tokens, with reserved ranges per layer and a check that blocks raw values.
How it works
- 1 Find every z-index in the codebase, including inline styles and values buried in third-party overrides, and list them with the component that owns each. The count is usually higher than anyone expects and several will be arbitrary large numbers.
- 2 Reserve a range for each layer rather than assigning single values, so a new dropdown can slot between existing ones without renumbering everything above it. Leave real gaps between ranges.
- 3 Name each token after the layer it belongs to and derive the ordering from Elevation Layer Map. That feature decides what covers what; this one holds the numbers and stops them being invented locally.
Copy the prompt
No account needed
Add this feature to my app:
https://addthisfeature.com/x/z-index-registry
Spacing Scale
Spacing Scale
Reduce the app's spacing to a small set of steps that repeat across every surface.
What it does
A named spacing scale covering gaps, padding, and section rhythm, with every existing value in the app mapped onto it.
How it works
- 1 Collect every spacing value currently in the codebase and count how often each appears. The result is usually a handful of genuine intentions surrounded by dozens of near-misses that were nudged once and never revisited.
- 2 Define a scale that is fine at the small end, where control padding lives, and coarse at the large end, where section separation lives. A linear scale gives too many indistinguishable large steps and too few small ones.
- 3 Separate the tokens used inside a component from the ones used between components and between page sections, and name them so the difference is obvious. The same number serving both purposes means a change to button padding also changes the gap between sections.
Copy the prompt
No account needed
Add this feature to my app:
https://addthisfeature.com/x/spacing-scale
Radius Scale
Radius Scale
Fix the app's corner radii to a few steps that agree with one another.
What it does
A small radius scale mapped to component roles — controls, cards, overlays, pills, media — and applied throughout.
How it works
- 1 Collect every corner radius in the codebase and reduce it to three or four steps, then assign each step a role: controls and inputs, cards and panels, overlays and sheets, fully rounded pills.
- 2 Set nested radii so the inner corner is smaller than the outer one by roughly the padding between them. An inner element with the same radius as its container leaves a visible sliver of gap at each corner.
- 3 Scale the radius with the component: the step that reads as softly rounded on a small button reads as barely rounded on a large panel, and as a lozenge on a short chip.
Copy the prompt
No account needed
Add this feature to my app:
https://addthisfeature.com/x/radius-scale
How it works
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1
Copy the link
Grab the Markdown instruction URL for this feature.
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2
Give it to your AI
Paste it into Claude Code, Cursor, v0, Lovable — whatever you build with.
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3
It inspects, then implements
Your agent reads your existing app first, then adds the feature to fit it.
Works with your stack
These instructions are written to adapt. They tell the agent to detect your framework, match your existing design system, and reuse what you already have — rather than assuming a particular stack.
Need it tighter than that? Customize the feature and tell it exactly what you're running.