Cerb SVG icons
SkillMediaDesigning SVG geometry for Cerb's icon set -- the four pattern families, the fixed outer template, and the mask-image constraints that make ordinary SVG instincts wrong. Load it before drawing or editing any icon.
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Then ask your AI: use the Cerb SVG icons skill
What this skill tells your AI
The instructions your AI receives, as published by jstanden/cerb in features/cerberusweb.core/assets/agent_filesystems/cerb-agents/skills/icons/SKILL.md and read by ahel’s review.
Cerb icons live in an SCSS Sass map and render via CSS mask-image. The icon's geometry determines opacity; the button's CSS text color provides the actual visible color. Fill and stroke are both just "opaque" — there is no color contrast available. Every visual distinction must come from geometry: opaque shape vs transparent gap.
Output format
Each icon is a single line in a Sass map:
name: "<inner-svg-geometry>",
The geometry is strictly inner geometry. Never include the <svg> tag (start or end), </svg> closing tags, <g> groups, or xmlns attributes. Just the shapes and paths. Use single quotes on SVG attributes so the whole thing fits in the double-quoted Sass string.
Outer template (applied automatically at render time)
<svg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' viewBox='0 0 24 24'
fill='none' stroke='black' stroke-width='2'
stroke-linecap='round' stroke-linejoin='round'>
...your inner geometry here...
<!-- The closing </svg> is added automatically -->
</svg>
Your geometry inherits:
- 24×24 viewBox (everything must fit; stroke extends 1 unit past the path)
fill='none'(override per-element withfill='black'to fill)stroke='black' stroke-width='2'(override per-element withstroke='none'to remove)stroke-linecap='round',stroke-linejoin='round'— sharp acute corners get rounded by ~1 unit
The four pattern families
Pick a family up front and design within its constraints. Combining families in one icon usually fails because of the mask-image color limitation.
1. Line icon (Lucide style, default). <path>, <rect>, <circle>, <line>, <polyline>, <polygon> with no extra attributes — they inherit fill='none', stroke='black' stroke-width='2'. Covers the vast majority of icons.
mail: "<rect x='2' y='4' width='20' height='16' rx='2'/><path d='m22 7-10 6L2 7'/>",
2. Filled solid icon. Add fill='black'. Add stroke='none' for crisp edges / sharp corners (small triangles, chevrons, arrow tips, pixel-precise cutouts); keep the template stroke when you want visual weight matching line icons.
chevron-down: "<path fill='black' stroke='none' d='M12 15.5l-7-7 2-2 5 5 5-5 2 2z'/>",
3. Compass / ring-with-inner-element. Outlined ring + filled inner element(s).
play-button: "<circle cx='12' cy='12' r='10'/><polygon fill='black' points='7.5 6 17.5 12 7.5 18'/>",
4. Filled disc with a punched symbol (the circle-* family). Filled r=10 disc centered at (12,12), symbol cut out via fill-rule='evenodd' + stroke='none'. The symbol MUST be a single continuous closed polygon (or non-overlapping subpaths) — overlapping subpaths push the winding count odd and re-fill the cutout. When in doubt, look up a shipped circle-* icon and trace from its geometry.
circle-plus: "<path stroke='none' fill='black' fill-rule='evenodd' d='M2 12A10 10 0 1 0 22 12A10 10 0 1 0 2 12ZM10.5 6 13.5 6 13.5 10.5 18 10.5 18 13.5 13.5 13.5 13.5 18 10.5 18 10.5 13.5 6 13.5 6 10.5 10.5 10.5Z'/>",
Critical mask-image constraints
Non-negotiable consequences of mask-image rendering:
- No fill/stroke color contrast. Both are opaque. Traditional outlining isn't possible — only geometric outline tricks (negative-space halo via evenodd, or a hollow stroked shape with no fill).
- Filled shape + stroke = bigger filled shape. The 2px stroke adds ~1 unit of opacity in every direction. Inset a polygon by 1 unit to keep its visible size when it carries the template stroke.
- A transparent gap is required to "outline" anything. Shape B is only visible against filled shape A if B is outside A, a cutout in A (evenodd), or both.
stroke-linejoin='round'rounds every sharp corner by ~1 unit. Usestroke='none'for true sharp corners.- ViewBox edges clip. A path at x=24 with a 2px stroke renders to x=25 and gets clipped. Pull paths in by 1 unit to preserve perimeter stroke. (The
circle-*family can use a full r=10 disc only because it usesstroke='none'.) - Masks can't occlude — no "in front / behind". Overlapping shapes merge into one blob. Fanned decks, stacked cards, "one shape behind another" do NOT work — use distinct, spatially-separated elements.
- Stroke eats the gap between elements. Each stroked shape extends half its
stroke-widthtoward its neighbor. Budget ~4 geometric units of gap for ~2.5 visual units when spacing composites. - SVG
transformrenders fine in the mask (e.g.transform='rotate(angle cx cy)') — but re-read #6 before overlapping.
Reference docs (mounted at @cerb-docs, read-only)
You have the full Cerb documentation mounted. Read these instead of guessing — especially before claiming an icon does or doesn't exist.
| Path | What it gives you |
|---|---|
@cerb-docs/references/docs/developers/icons.md | The canonical icon list. Every registered icon name in the shipped set, plus why an icon is a single-color mask that inherits currentColor. Check here first for naming conventions and prior art (circle-*, logo-*, chart-*, window-*, move-* families). |
@cerb-docs/references/docs/setup/developers/icon-builder.md | The Icon Builder: it holds inner geometry only, the wrapper <svg> is fixed by the icon pipeline, and output is two source lines (the $icons entry in cerb-icons.scss + the name entry in the UI service). Nothing is saved server-side. |
@cerb-docs/references/docs/data-queries/ui/icons.md | type:ui.icons data query — filterable/pageable list of icon names, the same source behind the icon-listing tool and the in-app pickers. |
@cerb-docs/references/docs/toolbars.md | How icon: is consumed on toolbar buttons and menu links (icon in addition to, or instead of, a label). |
@cerb-docs/references/docs/sheets.md | The icon column type and the icon:/icon_at: parameters on card, link, interaction, and button columns — the other main place icons render. |
Practical notes that follow from those pages:
- An icon name must be registered to be accepted. Icon pickers, toolbars, and sheets reject unknown names (they silently render nothing), so a new glyph isn't usable until both source lines are copied out and the CSS is rebuilt.
- Names are the API. Match the existing naming conventions in the icon reference — kebab-case, family prefix first (
circle-plus, notplus-circle;chart-bar-stacked,window-left). - Check for an existing icon before drawing one. Look it up in the shipped set or the icon reference; adapting a shipped glyph's geometry keeps the house style better than inventing.
- Icons are sized and colored by their context (buttons, panels, sheet cells, at a range of sizes), so geometry must read at small sizes with no color contrast available.
Draft, look, refine -- do not try to one-shot it
cerb_set_geometry pushes a revision and the preview updates immediately, so you can SEE the icon. That makes a rough first pass cheap and a long analytical build expensive. Get something on screen in your first turn or two, then adjust.
- Ship the draft early. A plain first version -- right family, right proportions, nothing refined -- teaches you more in one turn than another round of reasoning does. The user is watching the preview and will often correct you before you would have caught it yourself.
- Refine in small passes. One change per revision, or a couple of related ones. Every
cerb_set_geometryis undoable, so a wrong step costs a revision rather than the work. - Reason about geometry when the preview disagrees with you. Winding at the center of an evenodd cutout, stroke growth against the viewBox edge, the gap eaten between two stroked shapes -- these are diagnoses for a symptom you can see, not a checklist to run before drawing.
- Don't precompute what you can just look at. Curve math, traced coordinates, a scratch file of alternatives: reach for those when a shape is genuinely fiddly, not by default.
- Say where you are. "Here is a first pass -- I will tighten the stem next" sets the expectation that this is a draft. Several silent minutes reads as being stuck, and a perfect icon delivered late is worth less than a good one delivered in three quick rounds.
Working approach
- Start from Lucide. Most icons map to an existing Lucide design — adapt rather than invent. Lucide path data drops in cleanly after converting double quotes to single quotes.
- Pick a pattern family up front and design within its constraints.
- If an evenodd cutout fills in solid, check the winding at its center — for a disc + symbol, the symbol's center must be winding 2 (transparent). That is the diagnosis for that symptom, not a step to run before every draft.
- Take multi-icon requests one at a time. An icon editor holds a single icon's geometry, so work through a set in sequence — settle one glyph, note its shared parameters (stroke weight, corner radius, optical size), and carry them into the next so the family stays consistent.
- Iterate on dimensions, not approach. "Fatter / thinner / shorter / deeper" → adjust existing parameters. "Different style entirely" → switch pattern family.
- Round to 2 decimals max unless precision matters (e.g. cutout sagitta math).
- Use your scratch area when a shape genuinely needs it — traced path data, winding and sagitta math, intermediate geometry held across steps. Prefer looking at the preview over computing what it would have looked like.
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- Last commit
- Sep 2026
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icons-jstanden- Source
- github.com/jstanden/cerb