# Terminal mono — style recipe

## The idea

- A dark screen, one monospaced face and a single cursor green; content is set like command output, with prompts, aligned columns and plain rules instead of cards.

## Use it when

- Developer tools, command-line products and APIs whose users live in a terminal
- Changelogs, status pages and documentation that should read like plain facts
- Brands that want to feel exact, quiet and a little underground

## Avoid it when

- The audience is not technical and would read the prompts as noise
- The page needs photographs, warmth or a friendly, rounded feel
- Long reading text where a proportional face would be kinder

## Principles

- One monospaced typeface for everything; size and weight carry the hierarchy, never a second family
- A near-black ground with pale green-white text, like a screen in a dim room
- Content reads as a session: a prompt, a command, then its output
- Lists line up in fixed-width columns of keys and values, not boxes or tiles
- Plain 1 px rules and dashed dividers separate sections; no cards, no shadows
- One bright green for prompts, actions and the cursor; amber only for warnings and small notes

## Colour

- Dim screen (background): #0b100d
- Raised line (surface): #121a15
- Phosphor white (text): #d6f5de
- Faded output (muted): #8fb39a
- Cursor green (accent): #3ddc84
- Warning amber (accent-2): #f2c14e
- Grid rule (border): #2a3b30
- Text on background contrast: 16.43:1

## Type

- Headings: Space Mono, weights 700 — Bold, set no bigger than it needs to be; headings read like section banners
- Body: Space Mono, weights 400 — Regular for everything else, with generous line height so dense columns stay readable
- Scale: 13px, 15px, 17px, 22px, 30px, 44px
- A single fixed-width face; columns align because every character is the same width.

## Spacing and shape

- Base unit: 8px
- Spacing steps: 4px, 8px, 16px, 24px, 40px, 64px
- Tight inside lists and tables, with clear blank lines between sections, as in a terminal.
- Corner radii: 0px, 2px
- Borders: 1 px rules and dashed dividers in the grid-rule green; frames drawn as lines, never filled boxes
- Shadows: None; the screen is flat

## Imagery and motion

- Imagery: No photos or illustrations: prompts, command output, aligned tables and a blinking block cursor are the pictures.
- Motion: At most a blinking cursor and lines that appear as if typed; nothing slides or bounces, and all of it stops for reduced motion.

## Do

- Write examples as a short session: prompt, command, output
- Line up keys and values in fixed-width columns
- Put the background colour on green buttons, never white
- Wrap long output lines instead of letting them scroll sideways

## Don't

- No second typeface
- No rounded cards, gradients or drop shadows
- No more than one bright colour for actions
- No real command or program names in the copy