Introduction

Philosophy explains why @stnd is built the way it is. This section
explains how it actually works — vertical slices, the module loader, the
CLI, the APIs — written by hand, for a human reading it start to finish or
jumping straight to one page.

What lives here, and what doesn’t

Every page in this book is prose someone wrote on purpose. That’s the line
that separates it from Reference: Reference is every
@stnd/* package’s own README, generated live from the source — accurate
by construction, but written for whoever maintains that one package, not
for someone learning the framework as a whole. If a page here and a
package README ever disagree, the README is closer to the code, but this
book is the one meant to be read.

Reading order: Progressive Disclosure

Pages are ordered by how often you’ll actually reach for them — the cheat sheet first, calibration-grade architecture records last. That’s the same Lightroom rule the rest of the manual follows: cognitive load is a budget, spend it on what the reader came for.

You don’t need to master the entire system on Day 1. Standard chooses all typography, spacing, colors, and rhythm tokens by default. You only reach for this system guide when your project outgrows pure Markdown and you need to customize moods, scaffold vertical slices, or configure edge infrastructure.