Signal owner's guide
Everything from the download to your own palette, read from the files this theme ships.
- 2.8.4
- version
- 8
- pages
- 38
- components
- 73 × 2 modes
- tokens
- 4
- workflows
unzip signal-2.8.4.zip
cd signal-2.8.4
bun install
bun devThe download is a complete Next.js project, not a folder of snippets. It carries 8 routes, the token file, 38 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 signal-2.8.4.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/signal/, mirroring the tree below.
Signal 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/signalAn 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.
- /Signal — deploy-aware observability8 sections
- /pricingPricing — a working estimator, then the price model6 sections
- /changelogChangelog — every release, dated and attributed4 sections
- /docsDocs — quickstart4 sections
- /cliCLI reference — every sgl command and flag4 sections
- /contactContact — engineering addresses, response times, legal4 sections
- /incidentIncident detail — evidence from deploy to resolution8 sections
- /componentsThe parts — tokens, sections, primitives28 sections
Tokens are declared on .tt-signal as well as :root, so an install cannot repaint components you already have. Wrap the page in <div className="tt-signal"> 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 8 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 8 pages you saw above exist in both.
Making it yours
Tokens are the API: change the values, never the names.
- Edit the values. All 73 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
A page is pure composition. It imports sections, stacks them, and does nothing else — no data fetching, no page-level 'use client', no Next-specific APIs.
- .claude/skills/add-section
One section = one file in src/components/. Self-contained: it may import from src/components/ui/, and from nowhere else in the theme.
- .claude/skills/check-quality
Twelve checks. All of them are mechanical — none of them is "look at it and decide".
- .claude/skills/rebrand
Signal routes every colour through 18 variables per mode. A rebrand touches one file: src/theme.css.
Those summaries are the files' own opening lines. They are written against this repo, so where one names themes/signal/ 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 1050 lines of invariants, the file map, the type and spacing scale, and what never to touch. It opens like this.
# AGENTS.md — Signal
Rules for any agent (or human) editing this theme. They are not style suggestions;
the publish gate and the extension skills in `.claude/skills/` assume them.
## The four declarations
Every extension of this theme holds to these. They are the theme, compressed.
| | |
|---|---|
| **Signature** | **The annotated regression trace** names the commit that caused the number. It has exactly four route-level tellings: `/` opens the story, `/changelog` records the release, `/cli` prints the trace, and `/incident` closes the investigation with deploy, evidence, and resolution. The home hero and incident band are one coordinated telling. `/docs` now ends on a request/result excerpt without the marker + labelled rows + next-command shape. `/pricing` and `/contact` carry none. Count tellings by that shape and route job, never by counting terminals or figures. |
| **Sanctioned deviation** | **Dark is the default, not the override.** `:root` carries the dark table; `.light` is the variant. Every other theme in the catalog is the other way round. What it buys: a buyer who drops the zip in with no theme class gets the look they bought the screenshot for, and the identity is not one class away from being lost. Exactly one deviation — do not add a second. |
| **Register** | **Technical-plain** (`content-pass`). H1 at 9–12 words naming the mechanism; one clause; concrete nouns; no first-person plural. "Every deploy lands on the same timeline as the latency it moved", not "Find the deploy that moved your p95" — the second is quiet-declarative and is on record as a cadence collision with three other themes. |
| **Motion personality** | **Mechanical** (`motion-pass`). `steps()` is in character; feedback is crisp at **120ms `ease-out`**; the ambient slot is spent on the terminal cursor and nothing else. |The kit is plain markdown, so the work continues on your machine and your own account. Nothing calls back here.