diff --git a/desktop-new/src/shared/styles/agents.css b/desktop-new/src/shared/styles/agents.css
index 1c4bc0f45e..912eccfa85 100644
--- a/desktop-new/src/shared/styles/agents.css
+++ b/desktop-new/src/shared/styles/agents.css
@@ -35,8 +35,8 @@
     display: grid;
     place-items: center;
     border-radius: 50%;
-    background: var(--bg-accent-tint);
-    color: var(--text-accent);
+    background: var(--purple-3);
+    color: var(--purple-12);
   }
 
   .agent-avatar {
@@ -69,13 +69,16 @@
   }
 
   .agent-presence[data-running] {
-    background: var(--bg-success);
+    background: var(--green-9);
   }
 
+  /* No background, for the same reason as the panels in product.css:
+     this fills `.dv-content-container` (measured 610x718 inside 612x720, the two
+     pixels being its border) and that container is already primary glass. Its own
+     identical fill was compositing to 0.77 alpha rather than 0.52. */
   .agent-main-panel {
     height: 100%;
     overflow-y: auto;
-    background: var(--bg-panel-glass);
   }
 
   .agent-profile-header {
@@ -85,7 +88,7 @@
     align-items: center;
     gap: 1rem;
     padding: 1.25rem 1.5rem;
-    border-bottom: 1px solid var(--border-tertiary);
+    border-bottom: 1px solid var(--border-primary);
   }
 
   .agent-profile-title {
@@ -132,7 +135,7 @@
   .field-stack textarea,
   .field-stack select {
     width: 100%;
-    border: 1px solid var(--border-secondary);
+    border: 1px solid var(--border-primary);
     border-radius: 0.75rem;
     padding: 0.75rem;
     background: var(--bg-panel);
diff --git a/desktop-new/src/shared/styles/chips.css b/desktop-new/src/shared/styles/chips.css
index 1e94f9a96b..4ecf376ea4 100644
--- a/desktop-new/src/shared/styles/chips.css
+++ b/desktop-new/src/shared/styles/chips.css
@@ -18,7 +18,7 @@
     border: 0;
     border-radius: var(--radius-chip);
     padding-inline: var(--space-chip-inset);
-    background: var(--bg-accent-tint);
+    background: var(--purple-3);
     /* Primary text, not accent text. The tint is doing the colour work, so the
        label stays the same weight as the sentence it sits in — a chip marks a
        reference, it does not shout. */
@@ -40,11 +40,11 @@
   }
 
   button.inline-chip:hover {
-    background: var(--bg-accent-tint-hover);
+    background: var(--purple-4);
   }
 
   .inline-chip:focus-visible {
-    outline: 2px solid var(--ring-focus);
+    outline: 2px solid var(--purple-8);
     outline-offset: 2px;
   }
 
diff --git a/desktop-new/src/shared/styles/globals.css b/desktop-new/src/shared/styles/globals.css
index 0f91ac28df..6515f1fc4b 100644
--- a/desktop-new/src/shared/styles/globals.css
+++ b/desktop-new/src/shared/styles/globals.css
@@ -17,23 +17,111 @@
 }
 
 /*
- * The glass rim. Two inset shadows rather than a gradient border, because CSS
- * borders accept only solid colours: border-image takes a gradient but ignores
- * border-radius, and the two-background background-clip trick needs an opaque
- * inner fill so it bleeds across a translucent surface. See DESIGN.md.
+ * ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ * Glass materials — PROPOSED, for review on /design/glass.
+ *
+ * A glass surface is four things at once: a translucent fill, a blur behind it,
+ * a directional rim, and (sometimes) an outer lift. Those used to be separate,
+ * so a consumer could take the fill and forget the rest — and every consumer
+ * did, differently. The four chrome surfaces meant to match each assembled their
+ * own material and disagreed about the outer shadow; four inner panels set a
+ * translucent fill with no blur *and* no need for one, since they exactly cover
+ * a surface that was already glass, so their fill composited 0.52 over 0.52 to
+ * 0.77 — a value no token holds and nobody chose. These bundle the material so
+ * it arrives whole or not at all.
+ *
+ * NAMED BY STACKING DEPTH, not by the component that uses it. An earlier cut
+ * named them chrome / panel / float and it was wrong twice over: `chrome` and
+ * `float` both landed on glass-3 (66% opaque in dark — two thirds solid, which
+ * is why chrome did not read as glass at all), and naming a material after a
+ * component invites a second material the first time a component wants a
+ * different depth. Depth is the axis that actually varies.
+ *
+ * The rule is DESIGN.md § Surface and depth: **elevation reads as less
+ * translucency, not as a lighter colour.** So the higher it sits, the more
+ * opaque it gets, and the shadow separates it from what it covers.
+ *
+ * `box-shadow` is composed here once because it has to be: `rim-glass` and
+ * `elevate-xs` both set `box-shadow`, so used together the second silently
+ * overwrites the first. A rim and a lift cannot compose as separate utilities.
  */
-@utility rim-glass {
+
+/* Sits directly on the backdrop: chrome, nav, a region in glass. The most
+   translucent, because the backdrop is the thing worth seeing through to. */
+@utility glass-primary {
+  background: var(--bg-glass-primary);
+  backdrop-filter: blur(var(--blur-md));
   box-shadow:
     inset 0 1px 0 var(--rim-lit),
     inset 0 -1px 0 var(--rim-shade);
 }
 
-@utility blur-chrome {
-  backdrop-filter: blur(var(--blur-md));
+/* Sits over something already glass: popovers, menus, a modal over a panel.
+   Less translucent so it separates, deeper blur so what it covers is not
+   legible through it, and a real shadow because it is genuinely above. */
+@utility glass-secondary {
+  background: var(--bg-glass-secondary);
+  backdrop-filter: blur(var(--blur-lg));
+  box-shadow:
+    var(--shadow-sm),
+    inset 0 1px 0 var(--rim-lit),
+    inset 0 -1px 0 var(--rim-shade);
 }
 
-@utility blur-panel {
+/*
+ * Interactive glass: the material plus its hover, for a glass surface you can
+ * click. Separate utilities rather than a `:hover` inside the two above,
+ * because a glass *region* is not interactive and should not react to a cursor
+ * crossing it.
+ *
+ * A glass hover moves one step up the ramp and never changes blur —
+ * re-blurring a large surface every frame is expensive enough to feel. Opacity
+ * here is a step on a named ramp, not a fade applied to a colour.
+ */
+@utility glass-primary-interactive {
+  background: var(--bg-glass-primary);
+  backdrop-filter: blur(var(--blur-md));
+  box-shadow:
+    inset 0 1px 0 var(--rim-lit),
+    inset 0 -1px 0 var(--rim-shade);
+
+  &:hover {
+    background: var(--bg-glass-primary-hover);
+  }
+}
+
+@utility glass-secondary-interactive {
+  background: var(--bg-glass-secondary);
   backdrop-filter: blur(var(--blur-lg));
+  box-shadow:
+    var(--shadow-sm),
+    inset 0 1px 0 var(--rim-lit),
+    inset 0 -1px 0 var(--rim-shade);
+
+  &:hover {
+    background: var(--bg-glass-secondary-hover);
+  }
+}
+
+/*
+ * `rim-glass`, `blur-panel`, `elevate-xs`, and `elevate-sm` were here and are
+ * gone: every one had zero readers once the glass materials absorbed them.
+ *
+ * `rim-glass` and `elevate-xs` are worth remembering as a pair, because they
+ * could not be composed. Both set `box-shadow`, so an element using the rim and
+ * a lift together silently kept whichever Tailwind emitted second — a rim and an
+ * elevation cannot be separate utilities. That is not a naming problem; it is why
+ * the materials compose `box-shadow` once, internally.
+ *
+ * The elevation *tokens* are alive and read directly as `var(--shadow-xs)` in
+ * five stylesheets. A one-declaration utility wrapping a token earns nothing.
+ *
+ * `blur-chrome` survives on two readers, both documentation: the /design pages
+ * need a blur without a fill so a swatch can show a ramp step against the real
+ * backdrop. Product code should reach for a material instead.
+ */
+@utility blur-chrome {
+  backdrop-filter: blur(var(--blur-md));
 }
 
 @utility texture-dots {
@@ -44,14 +132,6 @@
   background-size: var(--texture-dots-size) var(--texture-dots-size);
 }
 
-@utility elevate-xs {
-  box-shadow: var(--shadow-xs);
-}
-
-@utility elevate-sm {
-  box-shadow: var(--shadow-sm);
-}
-
 /* Composition-input spike only. Remove with the spike route. */
 .spike-editor {
   outline: none;
diff --git a/desktop-new/src/shared/styles/product.css b/desktop-new/src/shared/styles/product.css
index 279ab1851e..213f174cec 100644
--- a/desktop-new/src/shared/styles/product.css
+++ b/desktop-new/src/shared/styles/product.css
@@ -47,32 +47,30 @@
 
   .destination-tabs button,
   .topbar-icon-button {
+    @apply glass-primary-interactive;
+
     height: 1.75rem;
     border: 0;
     border-radius: 0.5625rem;
-    background: var(--bg-chrome-glass);
     color: var(--text-secondary);
     font: inherit;
     cursor: pointer;
-    backdrop-filter: blur(var(--blur-md));
-    box-shadow:
-      inset 0 1px 0 var(--rim-lit),
-      inset 0 -1px 0 var(--rim-shade);
   }
 
   .destination-tabs button {
     padding: 0 0.75rem;
   }
 
+  /* The material carries the hover fill; this only carries the text colour,
+     which is not part of a surface material. */
   .destination-tabs button:hover,
   .topbar-icon-button:hover {
-    background: var(--bg-chrome-glass-hover);
     color: var(--text-primary);
   }
 
   .destination-tabs button[data-selected] {
-    background: var(--bg-inverse);
-    color: var(--text-on-inverse);
+    background: var(--neutral-11);
+    color: var(--neutral-1);
     box-shadow: var(--shadow-sm);
   }
 
@@ -101,12 +99,24 @@
   .buzz-dockview {
     --dv-background-color: transparent;
     --dv-tabs-and-actions-container-background-color: transparent;
+    /* Dockview's own theme sets this to a literal `white`, and `DockWorkspace`
+       passes `themeLight` in both colour schemes — so in dark mode the vendor
+       painted an opaque white sheet *behind* our glass, and the 52% dark fill
+       over it composited to flat grey. The panels' redundant second
+       fill had been hiding it: two stacked fills reached 0.77 alpha, opaque
+       enough that the white underneath barely showed. Removing the redundancy
+       revealed a bug that had been there since the dock landed.
+
+       Reset here rather than swapping the JS theme, because every dockview
+       surface this variable feeds is already overridden to transparent below —
+       the variable was the one leak. */
+    --dv-group-view-background-color: transparent;
     --dv-tab-active-background-color: var(--bg-chrome-selected);
     --dv-tab-active-color: var(--text-primary);
     --dv-tab-inactive-color: var(--text-secondary);
     --dv-separator-border: transparent;
-    --dv-drag-over-background-color: var(--bg-accent-tint);
-    --dv-drag-over-border-color: var(--border-accent);
+    --dv-drag-over-background-color: var(--purple-3);
+    --dv-drag-over-border-color: var(--purple-8);
     height: 100%;
   }
 
@@ -139,37 +149,45 @@
     box-shadow: var(--shadow-xs);
   }
 
+  /* Dockview arranges panels; Panel owns the surface treatment. */
   .buzz-dockview .dv-content-container {
     overflow: hidden;
-    border: 1px solid var(--border-tertiary);
-    border-radius: 1.5rem;
-    background: var(--bg-panel-glass);
-    box-shadow:
-      var(--shadow-sm),
-      inset 0 1px 0 var(--rim-lit),
-      inset 0 -1px 0 var(--rim-shade);
-    backdrop-filter: blur(var(--blur-md));
   }
 
   .buzz-dockview .dv-sash {
+    width: var(--space-2);
     background: transparent;
+    cursor: col-resize;
   }
 
   .buzz-dockview .dv-sash:hover {
-    background: var(--border-accent);
+    background: var(--border-primary);
   }
 
   .buzz-dockview:has(.dv-tab.dv-tab-dragging) {
     user-select: none;
   }
 
+  /* No background. These fill `.dv-content-container` edge to edge — measured at
+     610x551 inside 612x553, the two pixels being its border — and that container
+     is already primary glass.
+     
+     They each set the same `glass-2` fill with no blur of their own, so the two
+     identical translucent layers composited: 0.52 over 0.52 is **0.77**, landing
+     between glass-4 and glass-5. The panels read as nearly solid, which is why
+     the backdrop barely showed through a surface that was supposed to be the
+     most translucent one in the system. Nothing declared 0.77 and no token holds
+     it — it was the arithmetic of a redundant fill.
+     
+     A region that exactly covers a glass surface does not need its own. If one
+     of these later needs to sit apart from its container, it takes a whole
+     material rather than a bare fill. */
   .workspace-navigator,
   .session-view,
   .new-session-view,
   .empty-workspace-panel {
     height: 100%;
     min-width: 0;
-    background: var(--bg-panel-glass);
   }
 
   .workspace-navigator,
@@ -186,7 +204,7 @@
     min-height: 4rem;
     align-items: center;
     padding: 0 1.25rem;
-    border-bottom: 1px solid var(--border-tertiary);
+    border-bottom: 1px solid var(--border-primary);
   }
 
   .navigator-heading {
@@ -262,7 +280,7 @@
   .navigator-row:hover,
   .session-child-row:hover,
   .navigator-row-action:hover {
-    background: var(--bg-hover);
+    background: var(--neutral-4);
     color: var(--text-primary);
   }
 
@@ -307,8 +325,8 @@
   .session-thread-line {
     width: 0.625rem;
     height: 0.875rem;
-    border-bottom: 1px solid var(--border-secondary);
-    border-left: 1px solid var(--border-secondary);
+    border-bottom: 1px solid var(--border-primary);
+    border-left: 1px solid var(--border-primary);
     border-radius: 0 0 0 0.375rem;
   }
 
@@ -368,8 +386,8 @@
   }
 
   .message-avatar[data-agent] {
-    background: var(--bg-accent-tint);
-    color: var(--text-accent);
+    background: var(--purple-3);
+    color: var(--purple-12);
   }
 
   .message-meta {
@@ -399,7 +417,7 @@
     align-items: end;
     gap: 0.75rem;
     margin: auto;
-    border: 1px solid var(--border-secondary);
+    border: 1px solid var(--border-primary);
     border-radius: 1rem;
     padding: 0.625rem;
     background: var(--bg-float);
@@ -433,8 +451,8 @@
     height: 2.25rem;
     place-items: center;
     border-radius: 0.75rem;
-    background: var(--bg-inverse);
-    color: var(--text-on-inverse);
+    background: var(--neutral-11);
+    color: var(--neutral-1);
   }
 
   .quiet-button,
@@ -450,8 +468,8 @@
   }
 
   .primary-button {
-    background: var(--bg-inverse);
-    color: var(--text-on-inverse);
+    background: var(--neutral-11);
+    color: var(--neutral-1);
   }
 
   .new-session-center {
@@ -476,7 +494,7 @@
 
   button:focus-visible,
   textarea:focus-visible {
-    outline: 2px solid var(--border-accent);
+    outline: 2px solid var(--purple-8);
     outline-offset: 2px;
   }