Carafe owner's guide
Everything from the download to your own palette, read from the files this theme ships.
- 1.0.0
- version
- 13
- pages
- 50
- components
- 84 × 2 modes
- tokens
- 4
- workflows
unzip carafe-1.0.0.zip
cd carafe-1.0.0
bun install
bun devThe download is a complete Next.js project, not a folder of snippets. It carries 13 routes, the token file, 50 components and the agent kit.
See the priceInstall
Three ways in: the zip, the shadcn registry, or your agent over MCP.
The artifact is versioned and immutable, so the file you get is carafe-1.0.0.zip. Unzip it, run the four commands above, and the site is on localhost:3000.
The link arrives with your license, and stays valid for every future version.
Every theme is a registry item the real shadcn CLI installs. Files land under src/tailthemes/carafe/, mirroring the tree below.
Carafe is paid, so the request has to carry your license key. Put it in TAILTHEMES_LICENSE_KEY in your .env.local, then add this to components.json. The CLI expands the variable and sends the key as a header, so it never enters a URL.
{
"registries": {
"@tailthemes": {
"url": "https://tailthemes.com/r/{name}.json",
"headers": {
"Authorization": "Bearer ${TAILTHEMES_LICENSE_KEY}"
}
}
}
}bunx shadcn add @tailthemes/carafeAn all-access key works on every slug. A single-theme key works on the theme it was bought for.
A registry item is JSON, so image assets cannot travel with it. Themes that import images need the zip as well.
Point any MCP client at https://tailthemes.com/api/mcp and your agent can read the manifest, both token tables and AGENTS.md before it touches a file.
the four toolsWhat unzips
One directory, laid out the way you would lay it out yourself.
every file
Three of these do the work: src/theme.css holds every design decision, AGENTS.md is the contract your agent reads first, and .claude/skills/ holds the 4 workflows it can run.
Screenshots are not in the download. They are generated by the publish pipeline and live on the listing, not in your project.
Using it
Every page is a plain component, and the tokens are scoped to one class.
- /Mireille — all-day café and bistro6 sections
- /menuThe card, by time of day5 sections
- /visitHours, access and how to get in5 sections
- /bookBooking a table, and what is walk-in4 sections
- /noticesPersonal information, and what we do with it3 sections
- /frMireille — café-bistro, du matin au soir6 sections
- /fr/menuLa carte, par moment de la journée5 sections
- /fr/visitHeures, accès et comment entrer5 sections
- /fr/bookRéserver une table, et ce qui est sans réservation4 sections
- /fr/noticesRenseignements personnels, et ce que nous en faisons3 sections
- /handoverEditing guide6 sections
- /componentsThe parts, unassembled3 sections
- /404That page is not on the card3 sections
Tokens are declared on .tt-carafe as well as :root, so an install cannot repaint components you already have. Wrap the page in <div className="tt-carafe"> and everything inside picks them up.
Dark mode is a dark class on <html>. There is no second stylesheet and no dark: utility in the components.
The HTML edition
The same site again, with no framework under it.
Everything under html/ is a second, independently authored edition of the theme. html/dist/ is 13 compiled routes with local fonts and vanilla JavaScript — copy it to any static host and it is live, with no build step and no Node on the server. html/src/ is the Nunjucks source those routes compile from.
bun run build:html recompiles html/dist/ after you change the source or the tokens. bun run preview:html serves the compiled edition locally. Both ship in the download's package.json, backed by the two files in scripts/.
One token file drives both editions, so a rebrand made in src/theme.css reaches the HTML edition the next time you run the build — dist/ carries compiled CSS and never updates by itself.
The two editions are kept in step by the publish gate: every route in the manifest must have a compiled counterpart before a version ships, so the 13 pages you saw above exist in both.
Making it yours
Tokens are the API: change the values, never the names.
- Edit the values. All 84 tokens live in src/theme.css, in a light block and a dark one. Nothing in src/components/ carries a colour.
- Watch it land. Open /components. The styleguide reads every swatch, type step and radius live, so you see what the change did to the whole system at once.
- Re-check contrast. Run the check-quality workflow. The palette ships verified to WCAG AA in both modes and a rebrand should keep it there.
- .claude/skills/add-page
Carafe ships seven routes: /, /menu, /visit, /book, /handover, /components, /404. The last three are demo routes — /handover and /components are noindex, footer-linked only (SITE.demoNav) and deleted before a buyer launches.
- .claude/skills/add-section
A section is one file in src/components/. It imports primitives from src/components/ui/, derivations from src/fixtures/derive.ts and words from src/fixtures/strings.ts.
- .claude/skills/check-quality
Run these in order. Each catches a different class of defect, and skipping to the last one hides where a failure actually started.
- .claude/skills/rebrand
A rebrand touches three files and no component:
Those summaries are the files' own opening lines. They are written against this repo, so where one names themes/carafe/ your copy has the project root instead.
For your agent
The theme brought its own rules, so nothing has to be reverse-engineered.
AGENTS.md is 518 lines of invariants, the file map, the type and spacing scale, and what never to touch. It opens like this.
# Carafe — the rules
An all-day café and bistro theme. The direction is
`ops/design/outline-carafe-2026-09-16.md`; the build record is
`ops/design/pass-carafe-2026-09-16.md`; the merge surface the build agents share
is `ops/design/carafe-contract-2026-09-16.yaml`. Read the outline before
changing anything here — every value in this theme was argued there, and a
change that contradicts it is a redesign, not a fix.
> **Build state (2026-09-16).** Tokens, fonts, fixtures, the shared shell, the
> primitives, `src/assets/index.ts` and every route exist. The listing copy, the
> four skills and the README landed 2026-09-16. The HTML edition was brought
> back to parity with the React edition the same day — JSON-LD, `/notices`, the
> dietary filter and the six content cuts of the content audit. Later that day
> the owner made English the default, put the language switch in the header, and
> ruled the HTML edition single-locale English. The French route set was
> completed the same evening: the React edition builds **thirteen** routes —
> five public pages in two languages, plus `/handover`, `/components` and
> `/404` — and the HTML edition builds the same eight it did.
> Sections marked **owed** below belong to the agents building those; do not
> delete a heading because it is empty.The kit is plain markdown, so the work continues on your machine and your own account. Nothing calls back here.