# Syndicate Links — Agent Skill

> Use this skill when the user wants to design, prototype, or write copy for **Syndicate Links** — the affiliate / publisher infrastructure for the agent economy. The brand is editorial-warm, paper-toned, and mono-accented in burnt-sienna rust.

## What you have

```
README.md                  ← read first; full brand/voice/visuals reference
colors_and_type.css        ← all design tokens (color, type, spacing, motion)
fonts/                     ← Söhne weights (woff2)
assets/                    ← logos, OG, hero art, video
preview/                   ← rendered token & component cards
ui_kits/
  marketing/landing.html         ← syndicatelinks.co
  merchant-dashboard/dashboard.html  ← app.syndicatelinks.co
  publisher-portal/portal.html       ← affiliate.syndicatelinks.co
  blog/blog.html                     ← /blog + article view
```

## How to start any task

1. **Read `README.md`.** It carries Content Fundamentals (voice, casing, punctuation, sample copy) and Visual Foundations (color, type, layout, motion, shadows, radii).
2. **Link `colors_and_type.css`** in your output. Every token referenced in this skill comes from it. Do not redefine.
3. **Open the closest UI kit** in `ui_kits/` and lift the chrome — sticky pill nav, warm card recipe, dark code block. Do not start from scratch.
4. **Copy assets** from `assets/` into the artifact. Never link cross-project.

## The five non-negotiables

1. **Italic Instrument Serif headlines.** All h1/h2/h3 are italic, tight-tracked, sentence case. The pairing with dry Söhne body is the brand's signature.
2. **Single accent.** Burnt sienna `#b5411f` is the only accent. Per-page contextual accent is allowed (publishers rust, merchants slate-blue `#4a7ac6`, agencies near-black graphite `#2a2a2a`) — never invent a fourth.
3. **Warm cards, not white.** Body cards use the gradient + 1.5px border + inner highlight recipe at 18px radius. White surfaces appear only inside form inputs and the pill nav.
4. **One dark band per page.** The `#0c0c0c` code-preview block is the only dark surface in marketing. The dashboard has zero dark bands; the portal has one (the topbar).
5. **No emoji, no stock photos, no glossy gradients.** The only graphical glyphs are `→ ↗ ⚡ ✓ ⚠`, used in monospace contexts.

## Voice in three lines

- Sentence case. Em-dashes. Italic clause as the rhetorical pivot.
- "you" (the reader), "we" (the company). Never "users."
- Short. Direct. Slightly contrarian. State the position, name the alternative, name the trade-off.

Sample headline shapes that work:
- "Affiliate infrastructure / for the agent economy."
- "Three things the platforms / refuse to fix."
- "Why we do not hold your money / for sixty days."

## Common asks

| Ask | Where to start |
| --- | --- |
| Marketing page, partner page, /for-X | `ui_kits/marketing/landing.html` — keep the hero recipe, change the receipt content for the audience. |
| Dashboard, ops console, internal tool | `ui_kits/merchant-dashboard/dashboard.html` — sidebar nav, KPI strip, panel grid. |
| Publisher / agent / API self-serve UI | `ui_kits/publisher-portal/portal.html` — dark topbar with balance, link generator, ledger. |
| Long-form, manifesto, changelog post | `ui_kits/blog/blog.html` — italic h1, deck paragraph, rust-bordered pull-quote, divider rule. |
| Token reference, sample card | `preview/*.html` — pick the closest, copy the component, drop into the new artifact. |

## Three things to avoid

- **A second accent color.** Adding teal, purple, or a bright blue immediately reads off-brand.
- **Title Case headlines.** Sentence case only. The italic serif does the heavy lifting; capitals make it look like a SaaS landing page.
- **Drop shadows in cool grey.** Always warm-tinted: `rgba(26,26,26,X)`, never `rgba(0,0,0,X)` or `rgba(50,50,90,X)`.

## When unsure

The README is the canonical reference. The UI kits show how the README's rules play out in real surfaces. If something looks generic, lift a detail from a UI kit (the pill nav, the receipt tape, the rust pull-quote, the warm-card recipe) — that's usually the missing brand-specific note.