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Design systems at enterprise scale, the migrations that go with them, and interfaces taken apart one at a time.
Three apps, each with its own copy of the same 49 shadcn primitives. Extracting them into one package was mostly mechanical. The two interesting parts were the one component that was not identical, and the stylesheet that silently lost two thirds of itself.
A pastel palette fails quietly. Every pair looks fine on its own and the text turns out to be 3:1 on the tint. The fix is one rule, one pairing, and a 130-line script that refuses to let either slip.
Linear's marketing site is its design system running in production: one variable font used across seven weights, depth built from 8% borders and blur instead of shadows, and motion that switches itself off for people who ask. The one thing it does not prove is that its keyboard story survives its own CSS reset.
Two railways a whole country depends on, measured on the same ten minutes. Deutsche Bahn gets a traveller from the home page to a priced connection in four interactions and tells them what is late; IRCTC asks for two dismissals before the form, six gestures to search, and a login before a fare. On the booking task DB wins clearly. On giving information to people without an account, IRCTC does one thing DB does not. Both fail the keyboard.