CHRON-2026-03-30-A: Homepage Panel Atmosphere Mock

What Happened

Codex added a low-contrast atmosphere pass to the three Start Here cards on the homepage. The change was a visual mock intended to test whether the large dark panels benefit from light graphic structure without introducing literal imagery.

The episode card now carries a faint gold glow with concentric rings in the lower-right. The library card now carries a restrained set of vertical lines, like distant shelf spines or catalog marks. The knowledge-graph card received only a minimal ambient highlight so its existing minimap remains the visual anchor.

Site Impact

User-visible layout surface: homepage Start Here section
Goal: reduce the sense of empty dead space without filling the cards with heavy art
Constraint: keep the current dark, quiet visual language intact

Files and Status

site/app/page.tsx
Working branch status at time of note: local site mock in progress, not yet promoted

Follow-Up

Review the mock in-browser and decide whether the effect is strong enough to keep
If the treatment feels decorative rather than structural, try the spacing/layout fix instead
If the treatment works, normalize the pattern into a reusable homepage card style

Iteration

Later in the same session, Codex increased the prominence of the treatments so they would read on a normal homepage pass rather than only on close inspection. The episode card now carries a stronger glow-and-orbit motif, the library card a clearer catalog-line pattern, and the graph card a more legible ambient frame.

Pivot

The subsequent review rejected the abstract treatment as the wrong visual language for these panels. Codex then removed the vector-like overlays and rebuilt the cards around real project imagery:

the episode card now uses the actual MS-S01-E01 thumbnail image
the library card now uses real KB source-cover imagery from LIB-0084 and LIB-0240
the knowledge-graph card now shows a concept/figure/source triptych drawn from KB records

This made the homepage panels feel grounded in the corpus rather than decorated around it.

Correction

That image-led pass briefly displaced the existing knowledge-graph minimap, which was the wrong call. The graph card was corrected in the same session: the minimap was restored as the primary visual element, the background was reduced to a faint KB-derived side wash, and the episode card overlay was lightened so the Eleusis art reads more clearly.