MC-4909

User feedback: the dark/blue buttons with dark/black-looking text feel like bad UX. The board passed mechanical mc-design-qa layout checks, but fails the stricter popular-web-designs polish gate. Target: Mission Control `/board` live surface. Design reference direction: Vercel × Sentry structure with Linear/Raycast polish. - Neutral-first palette; fewer saturated colors. - Vercel-style shadow-as-border surfaces and precise typography/spacing. - Sentry-style operational density, but disciplined hierarchy. - Linear/Raycast polish: one primary action, muted metadata, tactile controls, restrained accent use. Evidence from review: - Current screenshot: /home/lucienne/.hermes/cache/screenshots/browser_screenshot_2d26d8851b2f45a689afecedab5ac2eb.png - Previous mc-design-qa evidence shows layout passes but 320px action cramping remains a note. Design audit verdict: - Functional structure is good: toolbar, kanban lanes, card metadata, actions, filtered-zero/mobile work. - Visual quality is not yet professional enough: too many accent colors, bright/generic blue CTAs, too many equal-weight buttons on every card, weak hierarchy, small/low-contrast metadata, and color-coded lanes/chips competing for attention. - Treat this as a design gate failure even though layout QA passed. Acceptance criteria: 1. Replace bright/generic blue primary card actions with professional high-contrast primary styling: near-black/charcoal or a single deep accent with white text. No dark/blue button may render with black/dark text or ambiguous contrast. 2. Reduce visible card actions by default: one primary action visible; secondary actions (`Done`, `Dismiss`, `Snooze`, etc.) become muted, menu/hover/secondary affordances without losing functional parity. 3. Simplify board color system: neutral foundation, one primary accent, semantic colors only in small chips/dots/icons. Lane headers should not be loud full-color identities. 4. Redesign card hierarchy: title first; next-action/status second; quiet metadata row (`MC-id · owner · project · age`); one primary CTA; secondary actions de-emphasized. 5. Strengthen typography/spacing: consistent 8px rhythm, readable metadata contrast, predictable card title wrapping. 6. Keep functional parity: ticket navigation, copy/open ticket ID, comments/glyphs, `Open request` / `Continue handoff`, `Done`, `Dismiss`, `Snooze`, Done history, filters, Mine, search, mobile tabs, filtered-zero reset all remain reachable unless explicitly product-approved otherwise. 7. Add/adjust tests where markup classes encode button/action hierarchy so future changes do not regress to equal-weight button clutter. 8. Run verification after implementation: - focused board pytest via uv with requirements; - `python3 tests/canary/run_board_battery.py`; - fresh screenshots: desktop 1440x900, mobile 390x844, 320px reflow, filtered-zero mobile; - console check; - popular-web-designs design review must score at least 8/10 with no critical UX blockers; - mc-design-qa must pass after the visual redesign. Expected check-in: within 2 hours.