Glossary

Auto-import. Resolving a component tag or script API to an import at compile time, so a .tess file needs no import lines. See Auto-imports.

Baseline. A committed file (tessera.baseline.json) recording how many violations each file has per rule, so existing code can adopt enforcement and fail only on new violations. See Enforcement.

Behavior. A headless interaction primitive, such as press, that a contract opts into and that a component's template attaches with an event like @press.

Contract. The JSON block at the top of a component that declares its name, role, parts, variants, states, slots, events and behavior. See Contracts.

DTCG. The W3C Design Tokens Community Group format that Tessera's tokens are written in.

Governed property. A CSS property whose values must come from tokens, such as padding or color.

Layout. A .tess file in app/layouts/ that wraps pages and puts the page where its <slot /> is. See Layouts.

Manifest. The resolved description of every token, with its type, tier and value per theme (tessera tokens build), or the route list built from app/pages.

Page. A .tess file in app/pages/; its path is its URL.

Part. A named piece of a component's template, identified by a class and listed in the contract. The root element carries the root part.

Primitive, semantic and component tokens. The three tiers of a token. See Token architecture.

raw(). The escape hatch for a single style value: it needs a reason and may have an expiry. See Enforcement.

Role. The ARIA role a component has, declared in its contract.

Signal. A reactive value: state() holds one, derived() computes one. See The signals runtime.

Slot. A named place in a component where a parent puts content, declared in the contract.

State. In a contract, a condition a component can be in that styles and tests care about (hover, disabled). In code, a signal made with state().

Theme. A token file that overrides semantic token values and applies under a data attribute.

Token. A named design value (space.4, color.action.primary.bg) written in DTCG JSON and compiled to a CSS custom property.

Variant. A named choice with a fixed list of values in a contract; the first value is the default. It appears on the component's root as a data- attribute.