# Color System

Aurora Core uses warm-vs-cool separation plus behavior cues to reinforce meaning.

## Primary semantic map

| Role | Color | Behavior |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Hero | Gold | Luminous, glowing, active |
| Secondary | Purple | Controlled glow, analytical |
| Info | Blue | Informational/system |
| Success | Green | Healthy/passed |
| Warning | Amber | Matte, darker, no glow |
| Error | Red | Sharp, urgent |

## Gold vs Amber
This is the most important distinction in the system.

### Gold
Use for:
- primary CTAs
- focus rings
- active nav
- hero metrics
- chart primary lines

Gold should:
- be brighter than amber
- glow on hover/active
- feel premium and energized

### Amber
Use for:
- review states
- cautionary statuses
- nearing-threshold metrics
- warning toasts
- warning progress

Amber should:
- be darker than gold
- avoid outer glow
- feel matte, restrained, and slightly earthy

### Anti-pattern
Never use gold and amber interchangeably inside the same semantic zone.

## Purple
Purple represents:
- analysis
- secondary action
- process state
- forecast layers
- deploy/process badges

Purple may glow, but it should never outrank gold.

## Blue
Blue represents:
- informational states
- storage/system/read-only metrics
- progress that is not heroic
- system-level interaction

Blue should not borrow hero gold borders.

## Example decisions
- Build Pipeline may use a gold fill if it is the primary KPI in view.
- API Latency should be amber when cautionary.
- A docs/search action should be blue, not gold.