| name | no-emojis-in-ui |
| description | Detect, triage, and safely remove user-visible emoji and Unicode icon glyphs from matrx-frontend UI by using Lucide icons or deleting redundant decoration. Use for Pattern Patrol P6, any UI edit that encounters emoji in TSX, or a request to enforce the repo's Lucide-only enterprise UI doctrine. |
no-emojis-in-ui
Enforce one rule: user-visible UI uses Lucide icons, never emoji or Unicode
icon glyphs. Follow the Pattern Patrol constitution and keep each mutation
batch to 15 files or fewer.
Detect
Run the registry detector over .tsx files:
rg -n -P '[\x{1F000}-\x{1FAFF}\x{2600}-\x{26FF}\x{2700}-\x{27BF}]' --glob '*.tsx'
Inspect every match in rendering context. Classify it as:
- Finding: JSX text, a rendered string, a chip/title/button label, seed or
sample data rendered by the app, product-authored text copied/exported for
the user, or an icon value that reaches the UI.
- False positive: non-rendered comment/documentation, console-only
diagnostic text, or a parser constant accepting glyphs as input.
- Unresolved: reachability or rendering cannot be proven. Report it; never
silently clear it.
Rendered demos, admin tools, debug panels, and sample apps are UI findings.
User-authored or external content is not ours to rewrite; report the rendering
path only if the product itself injects the glyph.
Route approval; never stop at the scan
Every verified finding takes exactly one route:
- Auto-approved: it passes every gate below; fix it immediately.
- Manual approval: the problem is certain and the repair is known, but an
auto-approval gate fails; propose the exact repair to Arman.
- Unresolved: certainty or a safe repair is missing; keep it open with the
missing evidence.
An empty auto-approved set is not completion. Tier R forbids unapproved
mutation; it still requires a plain-English approval proposal for every
certain, safe, worthwhile repair.
Auto-approval gates
Auto-approve only when all are true:
- The glyph is authored by us and visibly functions as UI iconography.
- One exact Lucide icon preserves its meaning, or an adjacent Lucide icon
already communicates the same meaning and the glyph is redundant.
- Copy, handler behavior, state, semantic colors, DOM interaction, ARIA text,
desktop/mobile layout, and light/dark behavior stay unchanged.
- The repair adds no wrapper/card/chrome, changes no chunk boundary, widens no
type, adds no suppression, and touches no generated file.
- The result remains clear without relying on icon shape alone.
Anything ambiguous routes to manual approval. Never auto-approve edits to
user content, parser behavior, terminal protocols, branded art, complex ASCII
or Unicode diagrams, or copy whose meaning changes when the glyph disappears.
Approved transformations
Choose the semantic Lucide icon already used by the component when available.
Otherwise import it directly from lucide-react.
| UI meaning | Normal repair |
|---|
| success / complete | Check or CheckCircle2 |
| warning | TriangleAlert |
| private / locked | Lock |
| public | Globe2 |
| keyword / key | KeyRound |
| document | FileText |
| removed / truncated | Scissors |
| new game | Gamepad2 |
| reset / refresh | RotateCcw |
| celebration | PartyPopper |
| purely decorative glyph | delete it; preserve the text |
This is a semantic map, not a blind replacement table. Preserve icon size,
alignment, and shrink-0 where wrapping text needs it. Mark decorative icons
aria-hidden="true"; an icon-only control keeps a real accessible label.
Delete a glyph instead of adding a second icon when a sibling Lucide icon
already conveys the same state. Never replace an emoji with a Lucide icon
banned by matrx/no-banned-lucide-icons; delete redundant decoration or route
the choice to manual approval.
Verify and certify
For each batch:
- Re-run the detector on every touched file and confirm only documented
false positives remain.
- Run
pnpm type-check, git diff --check, and the relevant repo gates.
- Inspect changed surfaces at desktop and mobile widths in light and dark
themes. Exercise every changed control.
- Spawn a second adversarial agent with: "assume this broke something; find
it." It reruns the gates, audits false-positive classes, and returns
CERTIFIED or REJECTED.
- Fix or fully revert a rejected batch. Ship only a certified batch through
./scripts/release.sh.
Update .matrx/PATROL_SIGHTINGS.md and
.matrx/patrol-reports/no-emojis-in-ui.md with the findings, fixes, approval
route, and certifier verdict.
