theme.inline style hardcode

theme.inline-style-hardcode

Rule ID: theme.inline-style-hardcode Severity: ERROR Category: theme Target Standards: W3C Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Level 3, W3C Design Tokens Community Group (DTCG)

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1. Overview & Core Invariant

Detects hardcoded color literals inside HTML/JSX style attributes that prevent theme cascade

Core Invariant:

"Color properties must not be declared as raw literals inside inline style attributes; they must use semantic classes or CSS variables."

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2. Technical Grounding & Engine Realities

Inline style attributes have the highest specificity in CSS, superseding all class selectors and theme cascades.

When developers write style="color: #2563eb" or style={{ background: '#fff' }}:

1. Impossible Dark Mode: The inline declaration cannot be targeted or overridden by .dark or [data-theme='dark'] class rules.
2. Broken Theming Pipeline: Token transformations (such as high-contrast mode or tenant styling) fail completely.
3. Maintenance Pitfall: Colors hidden in inline style strings avoid static analysis tools unless specifically parsed.

Charites enforces moving inline colors into utility classes or CSS custom properties.

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3. Vulnerability & Risk Taxonomy

Risk Vector	Severity	Impact
Theme Specificity Lockout	HIGH	Inline style specificity completely disables dark mode and stylesheet theming.
Accessibility Barrier	HIGH	High-contrast mode and accessibility themes cannot override inline hardcoded styles.

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4. Non-Compliant Code Patterns (Bad Examples)

ASTRO (Hardcoded hex in HTML inline style):

<div style="color: #2563eb; background: #ffffff;">Inline Color</div>

TSX (Hardcoded rgb in JSX style object):

export function Card() {
  return <div style={{ color: '#2563eb', backgroundColor: 'rgb(255, 0, 0)' }}>Bad Style</div>;
}

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5. Compliant Implementation Patterns (Good Examples)

ASTRO (Semantic utility classes instead of inline style):

<div class="text-primary bg-background">Themed Color</div>

TSX (CSS variable in inline style for dynamic calculations):

export function Card() {
  return <div style={{ color: 'var(--primary)' }}>Safe Style</div>;
}

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6. Detection & Verification Pipeline (How The Rule Evaluates Code)

This theme rule evaluates source templates against the project's design token graph:

flowchart TD
    Node["AST Node (Astro / TSX element)"] --> Extract["1. Extract Class Names (e.g. 'hover:bg-primary/10')"]
    Extract --> Strip["2. Strip Variants (hover:, dark:, sm:) -> 'bg-primary/10'"]
    Strip --> Split["3. Split Opacity Modifier -> Utility: 'bg-primary', Opacity: '/10'"]
    Split --> Convention["4. Query TokenConvention (Candidate: '--color-primary-light')"]
    Convention --> GraphQuery{"5. Check Token Graph (Does token exist in active scope?)"}
    GraphQuery -- "No (Banana Test)" --> Safe["Pass (Valid Custom / Untokenized Color)"]
    GraphQuery -- "Yes (Official Token Exists)" --> IgnoreCheck{"6. Check charites:ignore directive"}
    IgnoreCheck -- "Ignored" --> Safe
    IgnoreCheck -- "Not Ignored" --> Diag["7. Emit Diagnostic: theme.inline-style-hardcode with Replacement Suggestion"]

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Step-by-Step Evaluation:

1. AST Node Traversal: internal/analyzer streams JSX/Astro AST elements to the rule's Evaluate visitor.
2. Variant Normalization: Strips responsive (sm:, md:), interaction state (hover:, focus:), and theme (dark:) prefixes to isolate the core utility class.
3. Modifier Extraction: Parses utility segments and extracts slash opacity modifiers.
4. Token Convention Resolution: Consults the TokenConvention adapter to determine the official semantic design token replacement candidate.
5. Token Graph Verification (Banana Test): Queries token.Context to verify that the candidate token is declared in global.css or tokens.json within the element's scope. If not declared, the custom value is permitted without a false-positive diagnostic.
6. Directive Suppression Check: Inspects preceding AST comments for charites:ignore theme.inline-style-hardcode.
7. Diagnostic Emission: Produces a structured diagnostic with line number, column span, and actionable replacement suggestion.

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7. Verification & Test Harness (How The Test Works: 1-SSOT Tri-Corpus)

This rule is rigorously tested and validated across the canonical 1-SSOT Tri-Corpus in tests/correctness/theme.inline-style-hardcode/:

flowchart TD
    subgraph GoldenCorpus ["1-SSOT Tri-Corpus Test Matrix for theme.inline-style-hardcode"]
        subgraph P ["Positive Corpus (tests/correctness/theme.inline-style-hardcode/positive/)"]
            P1["P1: Obvious Direct Violation"]
            P2["P2: Indirect / Variant Concatenation"]
            P3["P3: Helper / clsx / cn Wrapper"]
            P4["P4: Deeply Nested Elements"]
            P5["P5: Aliased Imports / Re-exports"]
        end
        subgraph N ["Negative Corpus (tests/correctness/theme.inline-style-hardcode/negative/)"]
            N1["N1: Valid Design Tokens"]
            N2["N2: Explicit charites:ignore Directive"]
            N3["N3: Third-Party / Vendor Components"]
            N4["N4: Clean Semantic HTML"]
            N5["N5: Untokenized Custom Values (Banana Test)"]
        end
        subgraph A ["Adversarial Corpus (tests/correctness/theme.inline-style-hardcode/adversarial/)"]
            A1["A1: Template Literal Interpolations"]
            A2["A2: Ternary Conditional Expressions"]
            A3["A3: Spread Properties & Dynamic Overrides"]
            A4["A4: Dynamic Object Class Syntax"]
            A5["A5: Shadowed Variable Identifiers"]
            A6["A6: Nested Closures & HOC Wrappers"]
            A7["A7: Obfuscated Classes & Cyclic Tokens"]
        end
    end

    P --> TestRunner["Automated Runner (rule_test.go)"]
    N --> TestRunner
    A --> TestRunner
    TestRunner --> Gates["Quality Gates: Zero Panic, Zero False-Positive, Zero Bypass"]

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• Positive Fixtures (P1-P5): Verified to trigger diagnostics at exact lines and column spans.
• Negative Fixtures (N1-N5): Verified to produce zero diagnostics on valid tokens and legitimate exemptions.
• Adversarial Fixtures (A1-A7): Verified to prevent evasion across dynamic expressions, string interpolations, and cyclic references.

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8. How to Suppress (Ignore Directives)

If this pattern is required for an intentional exception, suppress the diagnostic using the canonical Charites Rule ID:

<!-- charites:ignore theme.inline-style-hardcode intentional exception -->

// charites:ignore theme.inline-style-hardcode intentional exception

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9. Configuration Reference (charites.yaml)

rules:
  theme.inline-style-hardcode:
    severity: error # error | warn | info | off