Seeds

Halo logic for two-tone seeds. Most seeds in real data are two-tone (e.g. "Tender · Hopeful"). The system renders a halo of the secondary tone's color around the primary orb — but the halo behavior depends on whether the two tones are in the same color family:

• Cross-family pair (e.g. Pink + Gold) · halo uses the secondary tone's full color. The orb reads as visually layered — this is what most multi-tone seeds look like, and the layering rewards close attention.
• Same-family pair (e.g. Joyful + Proud, both Gold) · halo uses a lighter sibling shade of the same family color (Gold core + cream-gold halo, Purple core + lavender halo). Reads as a gentle gradient — not flat doubling, but not so different it shifts the dandelion toward rainbow.
• Single-tone seed · no halo. Pure monochrome orb.

Auto-detection · no friction at planting. Color is never a UI step. When a gardener plants a seed (title · media · recipient · vault), the system scans the title and notes against the 21-word tone library, picks the 1–2 dominant matches, and the orb color emerges from the language they already wrote. If no tone matches, the seed defaults to Sky. A future settings override may exist for manual adjustment, but the core flow stays color-free.

Live exploration: see TEMP-seed-color-demo-on-globe.html for the model running on the V4 globe canvas with all 5 tone-color families and 10 lifecycle states cross-cut. Hover any orb for the tone reasoning, tap to expand for the lifecycle behavior rule.

Critical distinction: seed color ≠ vault color. The vault's color (Gold = Grove · Sky = Personal · Sage = Milestone · Purple = Legacy · Teal = Journey · Terra = Roots) tints the jar in the bottom sheet and the vault chip in filters. Inside the dandelion, seed colors come only from tone — never from which vault they live in.

State	Pulse	Visual signal	Notes
Bloom Now	~1s wide swing	Ambient outer glow always on · double expanding rings · +18% size	Pulls the eye from any rotation. The "click me" state.
Blooming Soon	~2s	Single expanding ring on close orbs · medium 70% glow	Warmth building. Within ~30 days of bloom.
Approaching	~3s steady	No ring · 50% glow · gentle breath	In-between · calmer than Soon, more present than Patient.
Patient	4–6s slow	Dim 30% glow · barely moves	Sealed-bucket. Multi-month horizon. Halo color reads strongly here precisely because the core is dim.
Distant	4–6s very slow	Even dimmer (~25%) · barely visible	Sealed-bucket. 6mo+ or location-locked-and-far.
Location-Locked	Quiet breath	Faint dotted geofence ring around the orb	Anchored to a place, not a date. Roots vault waiting on arrival.
Bloomed	None (constant)	Soft inner glow only · halo preserved	Truly static. The seed keeps its own tone color — no longer turns sage. It's done.
Drifting	None	Soft oat dotted ring · 72% opacity	Last-chance warning state · bloom is approaching its compost window. Press now if loved.
Composting	None	Orange dotted ring slowly counter-rotating · 50% opacity	End-state · fading away. Seed is in its final compost window.
Pressed	Slow shimmer	Sparkle cross + cream halo + 5 orbiting twinkle stars + center pip	Permanent · marked as special. Like favoriting in a photo album.
Released	—	No orb (compost completed)	The seed is permanently gone — it has fully composted and floated away.

State transitions are animated over 600ms with an ease-out curve. The seed never snaps from one state to the next — pulse rates blend, glow intensities cross-fade, halos fade in and out gracefully. Watch the demo for the full motion vocabulary in context.

Live exploration: open TEMP-seed-color-demo-on-globe.html for the full 10-state behavior layer rendering on the V4 globe canvas. The bottom-sheet "Lifecycle key" inside the demo previews each state's visual treatment as a mini-icon — pull the sheet up to see it.