chirp-theme

Static-first Bengal theme packaged inside the chirp-ui project

2 items

chirp-theme is a static-first Bengal theme packaged in the chirp-uiproject. It takes the visual language from theb-sitemarketing shell and adapts it to Bengal's documentation and content templates: warm paper surfaces, phosphor dark mode, cyan and amber accents, crisp radii, and an editorial docs chrome.

Thechirp-uidocs site uses this theme directly, so the package gets exercised on a real Bengal site rather than living as a disconnected example.

Enable It

Set the active Bengal theme in your site configuration:

theme:
  name: "chirp-theme"

What v1 Includes

  • A packaged Bengal theme entry point:chirp-theme = "bengal_themes.chirp_theme"
  • A standalone theme package with its own shell templates, partials, and assets
  • Static-first templates forbase.html, home.html, page.html, doc/home.html, doc/list.html, and doc/single.html
  • Retained core parity templates forblog/shell.html, blog/list.html, blog/single.html, post.html, search.html, and 404.html
  • Retained taxonomy/archive/author, learning/content, autodoc/API reference, shortcode/embed, root alias, and utility templates listed in the parity matrix

Design Scope

v1 focuses on:

  • docs sites
  • product/marketing pages
  • content-heavy static sites

v1 does not try to reproduce every Chirp application-shell pattern inside Bengal. The goal is a strong static-site shell first, with enough coverage to grow into a credible Bengal default-v2 candidate over time.

Ownership Model

chirp-theme is owned by the chirp-uiproject and should behave like a real, installable Bengal theme package, not a thin overlay on Bengal default.

That means the package itself should own:

  • the shell templates
  • theme partials/macros
  • the canonicalassets/css/style.cssentrypoint
  • any JS, icons, fonts, favicons, or manifests referenced by the shell

Thechirp-uidocs site is the acceptance target for that contract, so the theme is continuously dogfooded on a real Bengal site.

In the current cutover, "standalone" means the package owns the full runtime surface. The theme currently vendors the Bengal default asset and partial baseline intochirp-theme, then layers the chirp-themeshell and styling on top. The next phase is to replace more of that inherited baseline with more opinionatedchirp-ui-driven patterns.

Longer-Term Direction

The broader goal is to build a better and more comprehensive alternative to the historical Bengal default theme using modernchirp-ui, Kida, and Alpine-era patterns. The original default theme carries early-project CSS and template conventions;chirp-themeis the place to reach parity, simplify the old patterns, and then go beyond them.

That evolution happens from a standalone package baseline, not through continued runtime dependence on Bengal default internals.

Parity Policy

chirp-themetreats Bengal default's broad output coverage as the long-term target, but it does not treat the copied default templates and CSS as the target implementation.

  • Retained: shell, docs, generic pages, blog/post, search, 404, taxonomy/archive/authors, learning/content, autodoc/reference/API-hub, shortcodes/embeds, root aliases, and utility pages
  • Retained surfaces should be rebuilt with Chirp UI-native templates and tokens rather than preserved as copied default-theme implementations
  • Deferred: niche graph/data-table/experimental UI until an output contract needs them

The repo-level parity matrix indocs/CHIRP-THEME-PARITY-MATRIX.mdis the source of truth for those decisions.

The canonical source guide is docs/CHIRP-THEME.md.