Ship your finish

A finish is finished when it works in every palette, in both canvases, and — the part no script can check — in the exported PDF. This page is that list.

What you touch

lib/core/resolve-finish.js                     ← one row in FINISH_REGISTER
lib/base/base.finish.css                       ← the preset block
docs/src/components/studio/finish-catalog.ts   ← the Studio's picker entry
docs/src/components/studio/finish-library.ts   ← the reserved-name list
design/skills/finish.md                        ← the count of shipped finishes
examples/quarry.md + quarry.pdf                ← the demo deck

Six files. Only the second one is real work — the other four are a line each, and every one of them has a gate that fails until you write it.

The checklist

The preset

• One row added to FINISH_REGISTER.
• All four slot families declared. Unused background slots are none; unused --fin-frame is 0 0 transparent — none is invalid in a shadow list and silently kills the tone rail.
• Every full-bleed layer has a -opaque twin ending on var(--fin-canvas).
• The two faces have the same layer count.
• --fin-size, --fin-position and --fin-repeat each carry one entry per layer, in the same order the layers are listed: texture first, then wash.
• Accent alpha stays in the 5–16% range wherever a layer covers the whole page. A narrow band — an edge strip, a mark bar — may go higher.
• Both mark slots declared: --fin-mark: none and --fin-mark-text: "".
• A full frame uses --fin-frame, not the section’s ::after.

Palette-blind

• Every color is a color-mix() of var(--accent), var(--fin-canvas) or var(--text-heading).
• No hex literals, no url(), no mask-image, no margin.

Around it

• finish-catalog.ts entry added, all seven fields (nature and zone are easy to miss and TypeScript will stop you).
• The name added to RESERVED_FINISH_NAMES in finish-library.ts, so a saved user finish cannot shadow your preset.
• The shipped-finish count in design/skills/finish.md bumped — the ownership guard checks it against the register.
• examples/quarry.md written, six to ten slides, PDF committed.
• A changelog fragment in changelog.d/.
• npm run build:check green.
• npm test green.

The sign-off no script can do

• Exported through both engines — the command-line PDF and the in-browser export — in both canvases, all four files opened and looked at.

That last one is a hard requirement. A finish changes the bytes of every exported file, and its failure mode — a gray cloud across a full-bleed fade, a title slide washed to near-blank — appears only in the export. Nothing on screen predicts it.

Six ways a finish goes wrong

1. A fade ending on transparent in the opaque face. A gray cloud in every PDF.
2. Accent alpha too high across the full page. The backdrop competes with the words.
3. --fin-frame: none. Invalid inside a shadow list, so the declaration dies and takes the tone rail with it. Use 0 0 transparent.
4. url(), mask-image, a hex, or a margin anywhere in the preset.
5. A monogram baked into a deck-wide finish.
6. Mismatched layer counts between the two faces, which quietly corrupts the shared size and position lists.

Where to go next

• Pick the colors it will wear: Theme anatomy.
• Arrange what sits on top of it: Component anatomy.
• Build one from dropdowns and sliders instead: the Studio has a finish workbench that writes this CSS for you.