LMCache Design System

The canonical source for LMCache's visual identity. Revision A, 21 September 2026.

docs/LMCache-design-system-spec.md   The specification. Read this first.
tokens/lmcache-tokens.css            Normative values — governs on any conflict
tokens/lmcache-theme-toggle.js       The light/dark switch, matching the live contract
tokens/lmcache-docs-overrides.css    Conformance overlay for docs.lmcache.ai
marks/svg/  marks/png/               Wordmark, lockups, favicons, avatars
marks/ascii/                         The CLI banner mark, for swag and physical things
fonts/                               Geist, Geist Mono, Inter — woff2, TTF, licences
templates/                           Event and print SVG templates + event landing page
templates/fields.py                  The field vocabulary, normative for placeholder names
events/                              One directory per event; fill.py renders the set
spec-page/index.html                 Rendered proof — every swatch and ratio, both themes
logo-usage/                          Public logo guidelines: stand-alone page, lmcache.ai snippet, kit build

Start here

Open spec-page/index.html in a browser. It renders every token against every ground with the contrast ratio computed at build time, and it has a working theme switch. If a value in the spec and a value on that page disagree, the token file is right and both of the others are stale.

The short version

Two inks — orange #FE8444 and teal #139BAE — split across one wordmark. No symbol, no mascot. Geist for display, Inter for prose, Geist Mono for identifiers, no serif anywhere.

The fact that shapes everything else: the brand pair was built for a dark ground and spends most of its life on a light one. Orange is 7.05:1 on Ink and 2.44:1 on white. That is why light grounds get their own text inks, why button labels are Ink rather than white, and why the dark theme is native rather than an inversion.

Rebuilding

cd templates  && python3 _build_templates.py    # regenerate every SVG template
cd spec-page  && python3 build.py               # regenerate the proof page

Both are the test suite and both exit non-zero on failure. spec-page/build.py recomputes every contrast ratio from the token values and fails if any token misses its target; run it after any colour change. _build_templates.py validates the generated SVGs against templates/fields.py and fails on a placeholder that is not declared, a declared field that is not drawn, or free text left in a {{brace}}.

Logo usage and the logo kit

cd logo-usage && python3 build.py

That rebuilds the public guidelines page (logo-usage/index.html), the lmcache.ai version (logo-usage/wordpress-snippet.html), and the downloadable kit (dist/lmcache-logo-kit.zip). The published page is at https://lmcache.ai/en/logo-usage/. See logo-usage/README.md.

Making the assets for one event

cd events && python3 fill.py 2026-10-06-samsung-workshop --png

Write events/<slug>/event.txt, run that, and out/ has the twelve filled SVGs, the landing page, and rasterised squares and social cards, with the guides layer already stripped. See events/README.md.

Install fonts/ttf-install/ first. SVG cannot embed a face, every template names Geist, Inter, and Geist Mono by family, and a machine without them renders the entire set in system sans without raising an error.

Three things that are easy to get wrong

White text on a brand fill fails. White on orange is 2.44:1, white on teal is 3.32:1. Ink is the label color on brand fills, in both themes. Where a white label is genuinely wanted, the fill is Harbor #146773.

The whiteprint is not this system. It is the drawing convention for technical blog figures, its four inks are fixed literals that are never themed, and it does not govern the sites, signage, or swag. See §9 — including the one crossing that is genuinely useful.

The ASCII mark needs its font. It is monospace-dependent, and without the font the character grid collapses. Outline the text before any print or vendor handoff, or send the raw .txt.

Scope

This governs LMCache's own properties. Tensormesh corporate material is out of scope entirely.

Licensing

Three different sets of terms live here, and they are not interchangeable:

• Code, docs, tokens, and templates — Apache 2.0, the same licence LMCache itself ships.
• The vendored faces in fonts/ — SIL Open Font License 1.1, not Apache. The OFL requires fonts/licenses/ to travel with them; keep that directory on any redistribution. This is the obligation here that is easiest to drop by accident.
• The LMCache name and wordmark — trademarks of Tensormesh, a trademark question rather than a copyright one. Apache 2.0 grants no trademark rights (§6), and merchandise of any kind needs written permission.

LICENSING.md has the detail, including what is fine, what is not, and what needs permission first.