# Synthwave — style guide for coding agents

> Generated from the Aesthetary record for **Synthwave**.
> Research: **Partly sourced** · Build guidance: recorded in 6 of 8 research dimensions.
> 9 sources attached.

## How to use this

Paste this file into your agent as context before asking it to design or build something in this visual language. It states what is established, what is our interpretation, and what nobody has established. Treat all three differently.

**The most important section is "Not researched yet".** Its purpose is to stop you and your agent inventing rules that sound right and are not recorded anywhere.

## What this language is

**Defining:** Perspective grid, neon glow, chrome gradients, purple-to-orange sky

**Recognise it by:** A perspective grid receding to a low vanishing point, magenta neon line work and chrome display lettering, often with VHS artefacts: the cover-art set of the music genre. The receding grid is the structural device. Sincerity is not a test of membership. Vaporwave shares the chrome and the gradient; where the two divide is an open question pending Vaporwave's cultural review. Cyberpunk shares the neon but is wet, nocturnal and dystopian.

**Family:** Retro & Period Revival
**Era:** 1980s, speculative
**Native medium:** packaging, film

**Scope:** Synthwave is a 2000s music microgenre whose covers and videos carry a visual component. Register: gridlines, magenta neon, VHS artefacts. The perspective horizon, chrome and sunset sky are our reading.

## What it is arguing

A remembered 1980s rendered through the cover-art set of a music genre: gridlines, magenta neon, VHS artefacts and chrome lettering. Sincere, unironic treatment is an optional art-direction choice Aesthetary can make, not part of what makes work Synthwave; the sources describe the revival as ironic or tongue-in-cheek.

## What it is not

Commonly confused with these. Getting the difference right matters more than getting the surface right:

- Vaporwave
- Cyberpunk

## Established rules

Grouped by what kind of claim each is. A requirement of the language and our own interpretation are not interchangeable.

**How to read each rule.** Every rule states two separate things, and neither stands in for the other:

- **Kind of claim** (the heading): From our catalogue entry · Our reading · Documented · Source attached.
- **Evidence** (how it is established): Graded by our research brief · No source attached (`DOCUMENTED`) · From our catalogue entry (`SUPPORTED`) · Our reading (`CURATORIAL`) · Not researched yet (`UNKNOWN`) · No grade recorded (no grade in the record). Where a claim has its own canonical label, the Evidence line gives that label instead of the grade.
- **Product area**: which of the twelve areas the rule belongs to (Layout, Typography, Color, Imagery, Surface, Interface, Motion, Motif, Technique, Form, Hierarchy, Density), mapped from its raw area label in bold. "Context" means the rule is about the Aesthetic (its name, origin, lineage) rather than a part of the design. "Not mapped" means the raw area has no single area yet.
- The code in brackets is the `grade` field at `implementationConstraints.tokenRules.value.rules[].provenance.grade` in https://aesthetary.com/data/synthwave.json. "From our catalogue entry" means: Stated in Aesthetary’s existing catalogue entry. An outside source is named only where one is linked to the claim.

### From our catalogue entry

_Carried over from Aesthetary's original catalogue entry. The reasoning behind it was never recorded._

- **layout** — Composition is genuinely unusual and worth building: a single-point perspective grid is the page structure, so the layout has a horizon and a vanishing point rather than a column grid.
  - Kind of claim: From our catalogue entry · Evidence: From our catalogue entry · Product area: Layout
- **color** — Colour: neon gradient, purple-to-orange.
  - Kind of claim: From our catalogue entry · Evidence: From our catalogue entry · Product area: Color
- **imagery** — Imagery: 3D grid landscape.
  - Kind of claim: From our catalogue entry · Evidence: From our catalogue entry · Product area: Imagery
- **form / motif / surface / technique** — Form/motif/surface/technique: neon glow, chrome gradient.
  - Kind of claim: From our catalogue entry · Evidence: From our catalogue entry · Product area: not mapped

### Our reading

- **hierarchy** — Rank by distance from the vanishing point — nearest is largest and leads. Perspective doing the work scale usually does.
  - Kind of claim: Our reading · Evidence: Our reading · Product area: Hierarchy
- **motion** — The grid scrolling toward the viewer at constant speed. Native to the perspective device, continuous, never triggered.
  - Kind of claim: Our reading · Evidence: Our reading · Product area: Motion

## Found in research

What research established from sources Aesthetary opened and checked. Each line names its area, how it is known, and where it is scoped. "Seen in the work" means the source documents particular works or products rather than the Aesthetic as a whole.

- **Typography** — Chrome lettering is often paired with the light grid.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:typography-1` · Covers the specialist essay is about the 1980s trope and its revival.
- **Typography** — Bold chrome sans-serif is combined with neon-coloured handwritten script.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:typography-2` · Covers single student source; low confidence.
- **Typography** — Synthwave-styled work uses late-1980s typography.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:typography-3` · Covers games (Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon).
- **Motion** — A named antecedent: in Starhawk (1979) a wireframe trench rolled toward the viewer in endless perspective.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:motion-1` · Covers 1979 vector arcade game, not synthwave itself.
- **Motion** — A 2020 PremiumBeat tutorial for a retrowave background loop animates the neon floor grid scrolling with the Offset effect.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:w2-motion-1` · Covers A 2020 how-to for retrowave/synthwave background loops, not a canonical description of covers or official videos..
- **Motion** — A light sweep moves across the sun, and the whole frame is given a slight shake to look retro.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:w2-motion-2` · Covers Same tutorial..
- **Motif** — The perspective light grid is a recurring motif, one of the most recognisable tropes of 1980s futurism: glowing straight lines receding to a horizon on black, occasionally with mountain outlines or dawn light at the horizon.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:motif-1` · Covers the grid is documented as a 1980s futurism trope revived by retrowave.
- **Motif** — Kavinsky's OutRun cover shows a Ferrari Testarossa and palm trees; in synthwave-influenced games Tron's neon lines and Blade Runner's cityscapes often appear.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:motif-2` · Covers Kavinsky's OutRun cover (2013) and synthwave-influenced games.
- **Motif** — An oversized striped sun at dusk recurs.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:motif-3` · Covers student course post only; low confidence.
- **Technique** — VHS tracking artefacts, a playback fault of an obsolete format, are reproduced on purpose.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:technique-1`
- **Technique** — In the 1980s originals, graphic designers report perspective grids were often drawn by hand, with photographic diffusion to make the lines glow; computers of the 1960s and 1970s used vector graphics.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:technique-2` · Covers 1980s antecedent, not contemporary synthwave production.
- **Technique** — One 2020 After Effects tutorial builds the neon floor grid digitally from a solid layer with the Grid effect.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:w2-technique-1` · Covers Contemporary practice; contrasts with the hand-drawn and photographically diffused 1980s grids found in wave 1..
- **Technique** — In one 2020 After Effects tutorial, the VHS aesthetic is added with software effects, e.g. two Channel Blur effects to emulate chromatic aberration.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:w2-technique-2`
- **Technique** — James White (Signalnoise), whose site lists a podcast about 80s-themed art and synthwave, works in Photoshop and Illustrator, and says that when the 80s retro look was catching on he was doing a lot of rainbows and lens flares.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:w2-technique-3` · Covers One artist (James White / Signalnoise); his link to synthwave cover art is only through his podcast listing..

## Positions by area

The overall position recorded for each area. "No overall position recorded" means rules exist for the area but no position above them; the rules still apply. It is not the same as "Not established", which means nobody has researched the area.

- **Layout** — Specified
- **Typography** — Specified
- **Color** — Specified
- **Imagery** — Specified
- **Surface** — Specified
- **Motion** — Specified
- **Motif** — Specified
- **Technique** — Specified

## Design grammar — web primitives

A starting grammar for a website in Synthwave: a horizon for a layout, magenta neon lines on night, chrome display lettering, and hierarchy by distance from the vanishing point. Taken straight or with a wink, it is the same language.

Three kinds of line: **On the record** names a rule this record holds (its wording is under Established rules) and states what it becomes on the web. **Web translation** is Aesthetary's choice for the web, derived from the rules it cites; change it if you have a reason, keep the cited rule. **Not specified by the source** means the research reached this but the sources say nothing about it; **Not researched yet** means the research has not reached it yet. Either way, follow the instruction and do not invent a rule. Structured version: `designGrammar` in data/synthwave.json.

### Colour

| Role | Value | Contrast | Use | Kind |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| night | `#0C0420` | — | The page ground below the horizon. | Web translation |
| panel | `#120725` | — | Every surface that carries text. | Web translation |
| ink | `#F7E9FF` | 16.7:1 on panel | Body text. | Web translation |
| neon | `#FF2BD6` | — | Line work: grid, edges, rules. | On the record |
| cyan | `#2DE2E6` | 12.1:1 on panel | Links, focus, current state. | Web translation |
| dusk | `#FF8A3D` | 8.3:1 on panel | The sky's low band and warnings. | Web translation |
| violet | `#3A0F5E` | — | The sky's upper band. | Web translation |

- **On the record · Documented** · `claim:kcc:definition` → Draw line work in magenta neon.
- **On the record · From our catalogue entry** · `token_rule:color-5` → Run the sky as a neon gradient from purple to orange.
- **Web translation** — Keep every sentence on solid night; gradients belong to the sky and to display type. _Why:_ The gradient is a surface, not a reading ground. (`token_rule:color-5`, `token_rule:surface-8`)
- **Not specified by the source** — The sources do not specify exact gradient stops. _Instead:_ The record declares the stops free; choose them, and say that you did.

### Typography

Family: display: inline neon capitals; text: geometric grotesk. Stack: `"Monoton X", "Space Grotesk X", "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif`

| Role | Size | Weight | Line height | Case | Tracking | Measure | Use |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| display | clamp(2.25rem, 8vw, 6rem) | 400 | 1 | upper | 0.04em | — | The name, in chrome. |
| heading | 2.875rem | 700 | 1.05 | not specified | not specified | — | Panel headings, scaled by depth. |
| body | 1.125rem | 400 | 1.6 | not specified | not specified | 64ch | Everything read. |

- **On the record · Documented** · `claim:kcc:typography-1` → Letter the display in chrome, paired with the grid.
- **On the record · Documented** · `claim:kcc:typography-3` → Use late-1980s typography for display.
- **Web translation** — Set Monoton for display and Space Grotesk for text. _Why:_ Monoton's inline strokes read as neon tube; the grotesk carries text the display face cannot. Both are this page's faces, not ones the sources name. (`claim:kcc:typography-3`, `claim:kcc:typography-1`)
- **On the record · Documented** · `claim:kcc:typography-2` → A neon handwritten script may sit beside the chrome sans.

### Grid and layout

No column grid: a horizon and a vanishing point. Panels stand on the floor grid in depth, nearest widest.

Tokens: horizon `58vh` · ratio `0.78`

- **On the record · From our catalogue entry** · `token_rule:layout-3` → Make a single-point perspective grid the page structure: a horizon and a vanishing point, not columns.
- **On the record · Our reading** · `token_rule:hierarchy-13` → Rank by distance from the vanishing point; nearest is largest and leads.
- **Web translation** — Centre content on the vanishing point's vertical. _Why:_ One-point perspective puts the eye on the centre line. (`token_rule:layout-3`)

### Shape and geometry

Tokens: radius `4px` · panel-radius `6px` · line `2px` · glow `0 0 18px rgba(255,43,214,.45)`

- **On the record · Documented** · `claim:kcc:motif-1` → Use straight glowing lines receding to the horizon as the motif.
- **On the record · From our catalogue entry** · `token_rule:surface-8` → Give lines and edges a neon glow; give display type a chrome gradient.
- **Web translation** — Keep corners nearly square (4 to 6px). _Why:_ The grid is straight lines; a soft corner is a different register. (`claim:kcc:motif-1`)

### Imagery

- **On the record · From our catalogue entry** · `token_rule:imagery-7` → Show a 3D grid landscape.
- **On the record · Documented** · `claim:kcc:motif-3` → An oversized striped sun at dusk may sit on the horizon.
- **On the record · Documented** · `claim:kcc:technique-1` → Reproduce VHS tracking artefacts on purpose.
- **Web translation** — Keep imagery dry and nocturnal-to-dusk: no rain, no decay. _Why:_ The recorded boundary with Cyberpunk is a dry grid against a wet street. (`claim:idr:gestalt-boundary`)

### Stance

Taken straight or with a wink, it is Synthwave. Sincerity is an art-direction choice; where it divides from Vaporwave is open.

- **On the record · Our reading** · `claim:idr:gestalt` → Do not treat sincerity as a test of membership.
- **Web translation** — Choose a stance for the project and hold it; either is allowed. _Why:_ The record makes sincere treatment optional, and the sources call the revival ironic. (`claim:idr:intent`, `claim:kcc:boundary-2`)
- **Not specified by the source** — The boundary with Vaporwave is not settled. _Instead:_ Do not use stance, statuary or chrome to separate the two until Vaporwave's cultural review lands.

### Components

Anatomy, tokens and states below are Web translation: Aesthetary's specification for the screen. Each value line after them says whether it restates a rule this record holds.

#### Button

A neon tube: a magenta line on solid night, its label in the grotesk, lit brighter when you reach it.

- Anatomy: 2px magenta border; solid night fill; label in Space Grotesk, 700; 4px corner
- Tokens: border `2px solid #FF2BD6` · background `#120725` · color `#F7E9FF` · radius `4px` · glow `0 0 12px rgba(255,43,214,.55)`
- State, default: Magenta line on night, a low glow.
- State, hover: The glow widens and the line turns cyan.
- State, focus: 2px cyan outline outside the tube.
- State, active: Fill turns deep violet; the glow drops.
- State, disabled: Dashed line, label in secondary ink, no glow.
- Accessibility: The label is solid ink on solid night (16.7:1); the glow is never under the text.
- Accessibility: At least 44 × 44px.
- **Web translation** — Draw the button as a neon line on a solid night fill. _Why:_ Magenta neon line work is the cover-art set; the label stays on solid night so it reads. (`claim:idr:gestalt`, `token_rule:surface-8`)
- **Web translation** — Signal hover by brightening the glow, never by animating the text. _Why:_ Neon glow is the recorded surface; reading text is never the thing that glows. (`token_rule:surface-8`)

#### Card

A panel standing on the grid: the nearest is widest and leads, the farther ones shrink by the same ratio.

- Anatomy: solid night panel; 2px magenta edge with a low glow; heading scaled by depth; body text at full size
- Tokens: background `#120725` · border `2px solid #FF2BD6` · radius `6px` · ratio `0.78`
- State, default: Night panel, magenta edge.
- State, hover: Edge turns cyan.
- State, focus: 2px cyan outline.
- Accessibility: Only width and heading size shrink with depth; body text never does.
- Accessibility: DOM order is nearest first.
- **Web translation** — Rank cards by distance from the vanishing point: the nearest is largest and leads. _Why:_ The cited rule belongs to the Aesthetic's own medium; applying it to a screen component or motion is our translation. (`token_rule:hierarchy-13`)
- **Web translation** — Scale each farther card by one ratio, 0.78 per step of depth. _Why:_ One declared ratio makes distance legible as perspective, the way the grid recedes. (`token_rule:hierarchy-13`, `token_rule:layout-3`)

#### Input

A dark field under a cyan rule, its label set small above it.

- Anatomy: solid night field; 2px cyan bottom rule; label above in the grotesk
- Tokens: background `#0C0420` · border `0 0 2px #2DE2E6` · color `#F7E9FF` · radius `0`
- State, default: Cyan rule.
- State, focus: The rule thickens to 3px and turns magenta, with a 2px outline.
- State, error: Orange rule and a written message below.
- State, disabled: Dashed rule.
- Accessibility: A visible label on every field.
- Accessibility: Errors are written, not only coloured.
- **Web translation** — Rule the field with a single line, like a rung of the floor grid. _Why:_ The grid's glowing straight lines are the recurring motif; one rung is enough for a field. (`claim:kcc:motif-1`)

#### Navigation

A row of labels along the horizon, the current one lit.

- Anatomy: labels on one line; current label in cyan with a magenta underline; no background bar
- Tokens: color `#F7E9FF` · current `#2DE2E6` · underline `2px solid #FF2BD6`
- State, default: Primary ink.
- State, hover: Cyan.
- State, focus: 2px cyan outline.
- State, current: Cyan, underlined in magenta.
- Accessibility: aria-current on the current page.
- Accessibility: Underline, not only colour, marks it.
- **Web translation** — Set the navigation along a horizontal line, the horizon of the page. _Why:_ The page structure is a horizon and a vanishing point rather than a column grid. (`token_rule:layout-3`)

### Motion

Durations, easing and the rest of this specification are Web translation: Aesthetary's choice for the screen.

- Durations: grid 12s per two cells, state 160ms
- Easing: grid `linear`, state `ease-out`
- Transforms: translateY on the floor grid's rungs only
- Entrance: none
- Hover: The glow widens.
- Reduced motion: The grid holds still; nothing else changes.
- **Web translation** — Scroll the grid toward the viewer at a constant speed, never triggered. _Why:_ The cited rule belongs to the Aesthetic's own medium; applying it to a screen component or motion is our translation. (`token_rule:motion-14`)
- **Web translation** — A light may sweep across the sun, and the frame may shake slightly. _Why:_ The cited rule belongs to the Aesthetic's own medium; applying it to a screen component or motion is our translation. (`claim:kcc:w2-motion-2`)
- **Web translation** — Move only the grid; hold text and panels still. _Why:_ The record's motion is the floor; moving text would compete with it. (`token_rule:motion-14`)

### Deliberately not added

- **Interface conventions** (components): The record is cover art and video; the four components are translations of its visual rules.
- **Gradient stops** (color): Declared free on the record.
- **The Vaporwave boundary** (dimension.stance): Open, pending Vaporwave's cultural review.

## Coverage — what has been looked at

One row per research dimension a research pass considered. "Not researched yet" (`UNKNOWN`) means exactly that; a dimension can carry an Aesthetary recommendation and still be unresearched, and those are different things.

| Research dimension | Evidence | Resolved by | Carries a rule |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Composition | Specified · From our catalogue entry | follows the recorded claim | yes |
| Typography | Specified | Aesthetary decided | yes |
| Hierarchy | Specified · Our reading | Aesthetary decided | yes |
| Colour | Specified · From our catalogue entry | follows the recorded claim | yes |
| Density | Not specified by the source | Aesthetary decided | no |
| Imagery | Specified · From our catalogue entry | follows the recorded claim | yes |
| Form/motif/surface/technique | Not specified by the source: form · Specified: motif, surface, technique | follows the recorded claim | yes |
| Motion | Specified | Aesthetary decided | yes |

Unresearched: Typography, Motion. Where a rule appears for one of these it is Aesthetary's implementation recommendation, not a property of the language, and its Evidence line above says so.

## Not researched yet

Nobody has established a position for this language on:

- Interface
- Form

**Do not fill these in.** An absent position is absent research, not permission and not a blank for you to complete. If the work needs a decision in one of these areas, make it on other grounds and do not attribute it to this language.

## Grade your own work

16 checks: 6 mechanically testable, 7 needing a person to look, 1 needing a source Aesthetary does not hold, 2 with no recorded position. 2 further research dimensions produced no rule (Typography, Density). This rubric is silent on them. Scores do not add up. A failure against a required rule and a departure from something we invented are not the same result, and no total should let them cancel.

### Recognition — does this read as the intended Aesthetic?

- **[visual_human · recognition signature · Evidence: No grade recorded]** Strip every logo, word and borrowed image out of your work, then show it to someone who knows the collection. Do they land on this Aesthetic? The signature to hold is: A perspective grid receding to a low vanishing point, magenta neon line work and chrome display lettering, often with VHS artefacts: the cover-art set of the music genre. The receding grid is the structural device. Sincerity is not a test of membership. Vaporwave shares the chrome and the gradient; where the two divide is an open question pending Vaporwave's cultural review. Cyberpunk shares the neon but is wet, nocturnal and dystopian.
  - _If it fails:_ The work may be competent and still read as a different Aesthetic, or as none. Nothing below matters until this passes.

### Fidelity — are its defining rules present?

- **[unassessable · no recorded position · Evidence: Not researched yet (`UNKNOWN`)]** Nothing is recorded as a requirement of this Aesthetic. There is no rule here that your work must hold — which means nothing you do can fail this dimension, and nothing you do can satisfy it either. That is missing research, not freedom: our research brief does record failure modes to avoid, listed under avoidance below. They are recorded judgement, not requirements.
  - _If it fails:_ Not applicable. An empty dimension is an absence of research, never a pass and never a failure.

### Implementation — were those rules translated appropriately into this medium?

- **[visual_human · From our catalogue entry · Evidence: From our catalogue entry]** Your work may depart from this — but knowingly, not by accident. Composition is genuinely unusual and worth building: a single-point perspective grid is the page structure, so the layout has a horizon and a vanishing point rather than a column grid.
  - _If it fails:_ A defensible departure, and you should be able to say why you made it.
- **[evidence_dependent · Our reading · Evidence: Our reading]** Your work may depart from this — but knowingly, not by accident. Rank by distance from the vanishing point — nearest is largest and leads. Perspective doing the work scale usually does.
  - _If it fails:_ A defensible departure, and you should be able to say why you made it.
- **[visual_human · From our catalogue entry · Evidence: From our catalogue entry]** Your work may depart from this — but knowingly, not by accident. Colour: neon gradient, purple-to-orange.
  - _If it fails:_ A defensible departure, and you should be able to say why you made it.
- **[visual_human · From our catalogue entry · Evidence: From our catalogue entry]** Your work may depart from this — but knowingly, not by accident. Imagery: 3D grid landscape.
  - _If it fails:_ A defensible departure, and you should be able to say why you made it.
- **[visual_human · From our catalogue entry · Evidence: From our catalogue entry]** Your work may depart from this — but knowingly, not by accident. Form/motif/surface/technique: neon glow, chrome gradient.
  - _If it fails:_ A defensible departure, and you should be able to say why you made it.
- **[visual_human · Our reading · Evidence: Our reading]** Your work may depart from this — but knowingly, not by accident. The grid scrolling toward the viewer at constant speed. Native to the perspective device, continuous, never triggered.
  - _If it fails:_ Nothing. No one has researched the dimension yet, and this is only what Aesthetary would do. Departing from it costs you nothing.

### Avoidance — known failure modes, neighbour drift, cloning

- **[mechanical · recorded failure mode · Evidence: No grade recorded]** Check your work against this: No classical statuary.
  - _If it fails:_ A failure mode recorded in our research brief: recorded judgement about what weakens this Aesthetic, not a requirement of the language.
- **[mechanical · recorded failure mode · Evidence: No grade recorded]** Check your work against this: No rain, wetness or urban decay.
  - _If it fails:_ A failure mode recorded in our research brief: recorded judgement about what weakens this Aesthetic, not a requirement of the language.
- **[mechanical · recorded failure mode · Evidence: No grade recorded]** Check your work against this: No daylight.
  - _If it fails:_ A failure mode recorded in our research brief: recorded judgement about what weakens this Aesthetic, not a requirement of the language.
- **[mechanical · recorded failure mode · Evidence: No grade recorded]** Check your work against this: No muted palette.
  - _If it fails:_ A failure mode recorded in our research brief: recorded judgement about what weakens this Aesthetic, not a requirement of the language.
- **[visual_human · recorded failure mode · Evidence: No grade recorded]** Have you made any of these changes? Each one moves the work into a neighbouring Aesthetic: Against Vaporwave: open, pending Vaporwave's cultural review. Sincerity versus irony is not an evidenced difference: the sources call the synthwave revival ironic. Against Cyberpunk: dry optimistic grid versus wet dystopian street. Anti-signature: rain and decay make it Cyberpunk.
  - _If it fails:_ You have built the neighbour. That may be fine — but name which Aesthetic you are in.
- **[mechanical · declared closure · Evidence: No grade recorded]** Check your work against this: Not open: statuary.
  - _If it fails:_ This one is closed, not open. The record says generation must not go here.
- **[mechanical · declared closure · Evidence: No grade recorded]** Check your work against this: Not open: wet dystopian framing..
  - _If it fails:_ This one is closed, not open. The record says generation must not go here.

### Accessibility — the Aesthetic preserved without its inaccessible practice

- **[unassessable · no recorded position · Evidence: Not researched yet (`UNKNOWN`)]** Does this Aesthetic conflict with any usability floor? Nobody has recorded one for it.
  - _If it fails:_ Nothing — and that is the problem. An unrecorded conflict is not an absent one. Hold AA on reading matter and decide the rest on other grounds.

**Not covered at all:** Typography: Specified; Density: Not specified by the source. These research dimensions produced no rule, so there is no check. Treat them as unscored, never as passed and never as failed.

## Rules for the agent

1. Do not invent rules for any area listed under **Not researched yet**.
2. Do not treat an absent position as permission to do anything you like — say that the language has no position, and decide on other grounds.
3. Keep our interpretations separable from the language's own requirements. If asked to justify a choice, cite which kind of claim it came from.
4. If you need something this record does not contain, say so rather than producing a confident answer from the aesthetic's name.
5. When you self-score against "Grade your own work", score only checks marked `mechanical`. Declare `visual_human` and `evidence_dependent` checks unjudged rather than guessing, and never score an `unassessable` one.
6. Evidence "Not researched yet" (`UNKNOWN`) is never a failure. It means nobody researched the dimension, so departing from what is written there costs nothing and must not be reported as a defect. "No grade recorded" is not a grade either: do not treat it as our decision or as an outside source.
7. In **Design grammar**, a "Web translation" line is our choice for the web and may be changed with a reason; the rules it cites may not. Never present a translation as a property of the language.

## Provenance

- Record: `synthwave` · status `draft` · research `not_researched`
- Full structured record: https://aesthetary.com/data/synthwave.json
- Human-readable record: https://aesthetary.com/a/synthwave.html
- This file is a snapshot. The record may have changed since; check the page above.

_Aesthetary is an alpha. Where a page says nothing, nobody has done the work yet._