A reference can look convincing and still tell you the wrong thing. Checking three of this site's style references against their source exposed three different problems: a token without its layer, a theme without its scale, and a palette without its version.
This September 5 review checked 80 selected values across Carbon, Mantine and the legacy shadcn zinc snapshot used in the three-system form lab. The corrected references now retain the source, version, date, method and inspected value. Fields outside this review remain explicitly unknown.
Three corrections worth explaining
| Reference | Before | Checked source |
|---|---|---|
| Carbon layer border | #e0e0e0 | #c6c6c6 · White theme, borderSubtle01 |
| Mantine dark[9] | #141517 | #141414 · @mantine/core 9.6.0 |
| shadcn light focus ring | #a1a1aa | #09090b · retained legacy zinc HSL snapshot, rounded to hex |
These are corrections to this site's references. They are not claims that the vendors shipped faulty tokens, or that every release changed from the old value to the new one. The earlier records did not retain enough provenance to establish their original versions.
A border needs its layer
Carbon's checked White-theme export contains borderSubtle01: #c6c6c6. The old record paired a different gray with a contextual alias. The correction names the first layer explicitly and uses --cds-border-subtle-01. The check applies to this theme and package version; another layer or theme needs its own source.
The same review retained Carbon's relative type sizes, unitless line-height ratios, font stacks, spacing steps and motion values. Some edits restore the source representation rather than change the intended appearance. Counting every changed string as a visual defect would overstate the finding.
Inspect @carbon/themes 11.80.0 source ↗A theme needs its scale
Mantine 9.6.0 expresses many sizes as rem calculations using its scale variable. The revised standalone reference resolves that expression at the default scale of 1 and keeps rem units. It does not turn those values into fixed pixels. Its heading and body line heights now retain the package's ratios instead of approximate pixel heights.
The old small shadow also differed from the checked theme. A shadow name alone cannot establish its layers. The corrected record includes the actual composition, its scale assumption and the exact source version. Palette shades are similarly separated from semantic roles: dark[9] does not mean every body-text element uses that color.
A palette needs its snapshot
The form lab retains an older zinc theme from the official shadcn registry. Its light-theme ring is HSL 240 10% 3.9%, which rounds to #09090b in 8-bit sRGB. This is a claim about that retained file, identified by its hash. It does not establish the defaults of newer presets or a project with customized tokens.
The conversion is labeled observed, with its method recorded. Unchecked typography, radius and other project choices remain unknown. Current shadcn theming documentation describes configurable presets and semantic variables; a single palette cannot stand in for every setup.
Keep the evidence attached to the value
A check date next to a whole system is too broad. Each reviewed field here has a JSON path and the exact value inspected. If that value is edited later, the old evidence no longer verifies it. The site, Markdown and CSS exports, JSON endpoint and MCP tools read the same corrected reference.
- Carbon · 36 checked fieldsInspect reference →
- Mantine · 36 checked fieldsInspect reference →
- shadcn/ui · 8 checked fieldsInspect reference →
This is a bounded data review. It is not a complete vendor audit, a compatibility guarantee, an accessibility certification or a result from the planned AI execution benchmark.
Download sources and corrections (JSON)