brand-and-trust

name	brand-and-trust
description	Load when touching Roadie Labs visual styling, copy, or any trust-bearing claim (scores, testimonials, "honest" framing).

Brand and Trust — Roadie Labs

Ecosystem context and the anti-shill principle live in gravel-god-cycling/NORTHSTAR.md (canonical) — this repo's CLAUDE.md has a pointer. Read that before large or ambiguous brand/trust work. This skill covers what's specific to Roadie Labs.

1. Token chain — and where it breaks

Source of truth is the sibling repo ../road-labs-brand/:

• road-labs-brand/tokens/tokens.json — edit here
• road-labs-brand/tokens/tokens.css — generated, run python3 tokens/generate_css.py after editing json
• Never hand-edit tokens.css or hardcode hex in that repo.

This repo does not consume that chain programmatically. wordpress/brand_tokens.py defines BRAND_DIR = .../road-labs-brand but only uses it to locate font files (BRAND_FONTS_DIR). The :root CSS block from get_tokens_css() and the COLORS dict used for SVG attrs are hand-typed hex literals that happen to currently match tokens.json. Edit tokens.json + regenerate tokens.css and brand_tokens.py will NOT pick up the change — silent drift, no automated guard. If you change a color, edit both and diff by hand. Same drift-risk class as the Gravel God repo's brand_tokens.py copy — CLAUDE.md rule #10 ("never hardcode hex in generators") protects generators from hardcoding; it does not protect brand_tokens.py itself from drifting off road-labs-brand.

Generators must pull colors from brand_tokens.py (COLORS dict or the CSS custom properties, --rl-*) — never inline a new hex value in a generator.

2. Palette identity — Newsprint / Charcoal, not Gravel God desert

Roadie Labs is monochrome, not the Gravel God warm brown/tan/gold palette. CSS prefix is --rl-*, never --gg-*. Verified current values (tokens.css / brand_tokens.py, matching):

• Rich black #1a1a1a (text, borders, primary, T1 tier)
• Charcoal #333333 (accent/CTA — token name is signal-red but the actual color is charcoal, not red; don't trust token names over values)
• Medium gray #555555, muted gray #777777 (T3 tier), light gray #999999 / #b8b8b0
• Warm silver #d0d0c8 (borders/dividers), newsprint #f5f5f0 (background, not sterile white), white #ffffff
• Error/oxblood #8b1a1a — the only non-monochrome color in the system
• Tiers: T1 #1a1a1a, T2 #4a4a4a, T3 #777777, T4 #aaaaaa

Fonts: Source Serif 4 (editorial) + Sometype Mono (data). road-labs-brand/CLAUDE.md still lists Unbounded as a display font, but this repo's CLAUDE.md and brand_tokens.py note Unbounded was removed Jul 2026 (never deployed, every page 404'd its preload) — don't reintroduce without updating both sides. Neo-brutalist rules: no border-radius, no box-shadow, 2-3px solid borders (4px double on structural breaks), hover transitions limited to border-color/background-color/color at 300ms.

When porting a generator or component from gravel-race-automation, the Gravel God --gg-* palette (warm brown/tan/gold) must not leak through — swap to --rl-* tokens and check for hardcoded --gg- or gravel hex values left over from the port.

3. Trust rules

Testimonials — real or none, provenance-labeled if cross-vertical. The Sprint 41 fork swapped road race names into real Gravel God quotes, producing 53 fabricated testimonials live on roadielabs.com (fixed by restoring the real originals with a provenance line, commit history June 2026). A second, separate violation was caught and fixed Jul 2 2026 (47a4d0a, "whoops audit"): invented athlete names and results with no real basis. Current verified state: wordpress/generate_about.py (_testimonial_data(), reused by generate_coaching.py) carries 50 real Gravel God athlete quotes labeled "Gravel God athletes — same coach, same plan engine, different surface" — this is the only acceptable pattern for cross-vertical social proof. wordpress/generate_homepage.py's TESTIMONIALS list is intentionally empty with a comment explaining why — Roadie Labs has no road coaching results yet, and build_testimonials() hides the section while empty. Do not fill it with invented names. This is the precedent for future verticals (ski): never name-swap testimonials.

Never defensive messaging. Matt's standing rule: phrases like "no sponsors," "no affiliates," "no pulled punches," "no algorithms, no pay-to-play" answer a question nobody was asking and plant doubt that wasn't there. This repo shipped that exact mistake and reverted it (commit c57731a, Jul 1 2026): the homepage/methodology hero dropped that copy for positive framing ("scored by human editors who ride them"). Do not reintroduce defensive copy on hero sections, CTAs, taglines, or any marketing-facing text.

Honest-critic scores are the product. Roadie Labs' fondo_rating (14 dimensions + cultural_impact bonus / 70 denominator, see this repo's CLAUDE.md) is the same anti-shill mechanic as Gravel God — harsh T4s on famous races are what make the ratings credible, per gravel-god-cycling/NORTHSTAR.md ("The anti-shill operating principle"). Never soften a score or inflate a tier for commercial reasons. Every claim backing a score needs a citation — run scripts/audit_fabricated_claims.py after any batch of profile edits; it flags high-confidence claims (championship/official/state/national/world) not backed by a research dump.

When NOT to use this

Skip this skill for pure data/schema work (race JSON fields, scoring math, config/dimensions.json) that touches no rendered copy, CSS, or trust claim — use the repo's CLAUDE.md scoring/critical-rules sections instead. Skip it for infra/deploy work (SSH, SiteGround, sitemap generation) with no visual or copy change.