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Monochromatic -- Open-Source Design System and Monorepo

Overview

Monochromatic is an open-source TypeScript monorepo ecosystem that I have maintained since 2023. It comprises a CSS design system, functional utilities library, and the static site generator powering this very website.

View on GitHub

My role and contributions

I am the lead maintainer and sole architect, responsible for:

  • Architecture -- Designing the monorepo structure, package boundaries, and dependency graph across dozens of packages
  • CSS design system -- Building a token-based design system with OKLCH colours, logical properties, and light/dark mode support
  • Utilities library -- Functional TypeScript utilities for common patterns
  • Configuration presets -- Shareable configs for Dprint, Oxlint, and TypeScript
  • Documentation -- Writing documentation with Astro
  • Testing -- Enforcing standards via automated testing
  • Static site generator -- Building the SSG that powers aquati.cat, featuring incremental builds, MDX processing, i18n, and build-time syntax highlighting with the CSS Custom Highlight API

Technical highlights

  • Monorepo tooling -- pnpm workspaces, mise task runner, workspace-protocol dependencies
  • Build-time syntax highlighting -- Lezer parsers run at build time; only pre-computed character offsets ship to the browser, achieving a 99.4% reduction in client-side JavaScript
  • Incremental builds -- SHA-256 content hashing with a manifest-based cache skips re-processing unchanged files
  • Type-safe i18n -- typesafe-i18n for compile-time translation safety
  • OKLCH colour system -- CSS custom properties with perceptually uniform colour spaces for consistent light and dark themes

Skills and tools demonstrated

  • TypeScript and JavaScript
  • Monorepo architecture (pnpm workspaces)
  • CSS design systems and custom properties
  • Static site generation
  • Vite and Astro
  • ESLint and code quality tooling
  • Technical documentation
  • Open-source project maintenance