Brand Guidelines v1.0

Halyard

Your organization's living knowledge base. Every decision, preference, and insight — captured, searchable, and compounding.

01 — Identity
Quiet confidence,
extraordinary precision
Halyard is the rope that hoists the sail — essential infrastructure that enables forward motion. Our brand reflects this: understated, dependable, and quietly powerful. We're not a "Slack integration" — we're the knowledge layer that powers how your organization thinks, decides, and operates.

Sophisticated

Enterprise-grade without being corporate. We respect our users' intelligence and show it through restraint, not excess.

Warm

Dark surfaces, warm undertones. Technology that feels human because it's built around human expertise at its core.

Precise

Every element earns its place. Gold accents are used sparingly — marking what matters, not decorating what doesn't.

Compounding

We lead with the knowledge base, not the plumbing. Slack is a channel — Halyard is the intelligence that grows with every interaction.

02 — Color System
Dark canvas,
deliberate light
Our palette is built on warm charcoal neutrals with gold as the single accent color. The warmth in our darks prevents sterility; the gold signals precision and value without shouting.
Core Neutrals — Warm Charcoal
950#0c0a06
900#131210
850#1a1815
800#211f1b
750#292622
700#312e28
600#403c34
500#585349
400#7d766a
300#a6a094
200#cbc5b9
100#ebe5db
50#f7f2ea
Logo Colors — Sail & Rect
Rect Dark#1C1A16
Rect Light#F5EFE6
Sail Cream#E8DFD0
Sail Espresso#2B1F14
Skeu Start#F5EDE0
Skeu Jib End#D4C8B5
Skeu Main End#C8BBAA
Accent — Gold
50#fefce8
100#fef9c3
200#fef08a
300#fde047
400#facc15
500#d4a017
600#b8860b
700#8b6914
Supporting — Stone
300#b8b0a0
400#9a907d
500#7c7264
600#625a4e
700#4a4439
800#332f27
Semantic
Success#4ade80
Warning#f59e0b
Error#ef4444
Info#60a5fa
03 — Typography
Playfair Display
meets Geist
Playfair Display brings editorial gravitas and high-contrast elegance to headings. Geist provides clean, modern legibility for interface text. The pairing balances authority with approachability.
Playfair Display · Regular 400 60px / 1.1 Display
Autonomous agents,
human guardrails
Playfair Display · Regular 400 36px / 1.15 Heading
Connect your team's expertise
to every AI conversation
Geist · Medium 500 20px / 1.4 Subheading
AI agents don't need to guess when they can ask someone who knows. Halyard bridges the gap between machine speed and human judgment.
Geist · Regular 400 14px / 1.6 Body
When your AI agent encounters ambiguity, a knowledge gap, or a decision that requires human judgment, Halyard routes the question to the right expert via Slack. The expert responds in their normal workflow, and the agent continues with verified information — no context switching, no delays, no hallucination.
Geist Mono · Regular 400 12px / 1.5 Caption / Code
avg_response_time: 4.2min · questions_routed: 1,247 · knowledge_entries: 892
04 — Logo System
Mark, wordmark,
and lockup
The sail mark evokes forward motion and wind — two triangular sails (a small jib and larger main) represent the bridge between AI speed and human expertise. Warm cream sails on dark backgrounds; warm espresso sails on light. App icon variants include a rounded rect fill.
Dark App Icon
Light App Icon
Mark on dark
Halyard Wordmark
Halyard Lockup
05 — Gradients & Surfaces
Subtle depth,
not decoration
Gradients are used structurally — to create depth, hierarchy, and atmosphere. Never for decoration. The warm gold glow appears as ambient light, not as a stripe or band.
Warmth
linear-gradient(135deg, neutral-900, neutral-800, gold/15%)
Surface
linear-gradient(180deg, neutral-850, neutral-950)
Accent
linear-gradient(135deg, gold-700, gold-500, gold-400)
Glow
radial-gradient(gold/12%, neutral-900)
Depth
linear-gradient(180deg, neutral-800 → 950)
Hero
layered radial-gradient gold glow on neutral-950
06 — Components
Built for clarity
Components follow a principle of quiet hierarchy: dark surfaces, subtle borders, and gold used only for primary actions and active states.

Buttons

Badges

Active Draft Connected
Enterprise 12 experts 99.9% uptime

Form Input

Card

How should we handle auth timeouts?
Agent encountered an ambiguous authentication edge case and needs human input.
Waiting for expert
2m ago
07 — UI Preview
Knowledge editor
A taste of how the brand system comes together in a product context. Dark canvas, warm surfaces, gold for what matters.
app.halyard.dev
Halyard
Docs
Questions
Experts
Settings
Documents
Engineering
API Design
Rate Limiting v2
Auth Migration
Compliance
Onboarding
Rate Limiting Strategy for v2 API
Decision Sarah Chen · Updated 2h ago

After evaluating token bucket, sliding window, and fixed window approaches, we're going with sliding window counters for the v2 API rate limiting.

Key factors in this decision:

  • Smoothest distribution of requests across time windows
  • Redis-native implementation via sorted sets
  • Per-tenant configurability without code changes

See also: Auth Migration for related token handling changes.

Type
Decision
Tags
api rate-limit v2
Author
Sarah Chen
Relations
Auth Migration
API Design
08 — Voice & Tone
How we sound
Our voice is direct, confident, and respectful. We write for people who are good at their jobs and don't need hand-holding.
Do
  • Write short, clear sentences
  • Use active voice and direct language
  • Lead with the benefit, not the feature
  • Trust the reader's intelligence
  • "18 new knowledge entries this week"
  • "34% of questions auto-resolved from your KB"
Don't
  • Use buzzwords or hype language
  • Say "revolutionary", "game-changing", or "powered by AI"
  • Over-explain what users can see for themselves
  • Use exclamation marks (except celebrations)
  • "Our cutting-edge AI platform revolutionizes..."
  • "You have successfully completed the process!"
09 — Spacing & Radius
Consistent rhythm
An 8px base grid keeps everything aligned. Border radii are generous but not bubbly — we're building tools, not toys.
4px
8px
12px
16px
24px
32px
48px
64px
96px
Border Radius
4px · sm
8px · md
12px · lg
16px · xl
full · pill