Status: Phase 1 stub. Matures in Phase 5 per §8.1.

Statement

Diagnostics surfaces — and only diagnostics surfaces — render through an 8-color categorical palette. Product surfaces use the semantic palette (F-7). The two palettes never mix on the same surface.

Why

The 8-color palette (red / orange / amber / green / teal / blue / purple / pink) communicates category, not meaning. It exists for operator-only views where many distinct items must be visually separable at a glance — relay status grids, MLS epoch timelines, KP availability matrices. On a product surface, the same palette would imply that pink "means" something the user has to learn, which it does not.

Conversely, the semantic palette (success / warning / error / info / neutral) communicates meaning and is exactly wrong for category separation: every relay would be "info" and the operator would distinguish them by reading text rather than scanning color.

The audit found two screens where diagnostics palette colors leaked into product context (call-quality indicator, vault-share ribbon) — both produced moments where the user paused trying to decode the color. Separating the palettes by surface is the cheapest fix.

How

src/components/design-system/colors.ts exports both palettes as separate named maps. <SymbolTile> (Phase 1 Track B PR #2) is the only product primitive that may consume the diagnostic palette, and only by 8-variant index — never as semantic.

Phase 5 deepens this stub with the full palette specification, the cross-mode contrast matrix (§2.3), and counter-example screenshots.