Spacing scale audit: 53 literal spacing values off your own token scale

Spacing scale audit: 53 literal spacing values off your own token scale

Hi. I maintain stylelint-plugin-rhythmguard, a Stylelint rule that checks spacing values against a project's own scale. To keep it quiet on code I do not control, I run it against public design systems on pinned commits and publish the numbers. This repository is one of them, and I would rather you saw the audit here than in a report first.

What was run. npx rhythmguard audit . --scale auto at 12cb8b9 over scss. Hairlines of one pixel or less, percentages, and generated or test paths are excluded. Anyone can reproduce it in a checkout of that commit.

What it found. Scale 0, 4, 8, 16, 24, 48 inferred from your own spacing tokens in the stylesheets. 53 literal spacing values are off that scale.

• Values: .125rem ×9, .75rem ×8, 1.25rem ×8, 2rem ×6, 15px ×4
• Properties: padding ×22, margin-top ×9, margin ×4, margin-left ×4, padding-left ×3

Three values usually explain most of the count, and each is a single decision: a step the scale is missing, a slip, or a token nobody defined. A property table led by sibling margins often means the parent could own the spacing with gap.

The ask. Nothing is required. If the numbers are useful, I can open a small PR for the top value with before and after screenshots, or a one-rule Stylelint config at warning level that reports new off-scale values against your tokens and nothing else. If the findings are wrong for this codebase, tell me which ones; false positives are the most valuable report the tool gets and they change its defaults.

The row for this repository will appear in a periodic "State of Spacing" table in the Rhythmguard repository, with this issue linked. If you would rather not be listed, say so here and I will remove it.

Feel free to close this if it is not useful. Thanks for the CSS.

Reproduce the audit with npx rhythmguard audit . --scale auto at commit 12cb8b9, targeting scss, then inspect the reported literal values against the inferred scale 0, 4, 8, 16, 24, 48. The issue provides no named files or required fix; work is complete only after the project decides which findings are intentional, corrected, or otherwise addressed.