Cards inherit the channel-color stripe and instrument badges that already define the rack. Adding a user-chosen icon turns each card into something the user actually recognises at a glance — a mouse becomes a mouse, a motherboard becomes a motherboard. The badge stays as the type-of-thing label; the icon answers which thing. Optional, channel-tinted, and slotted in at the leading edge of .mod-head so the rest of the head row's typography is untouched.
The plate isn't a box around an icon. It's a small instrument-panel face that re-uses the card's channel color, the corner-bracket silkscreen, and the modular-rack scanline texture. Touch it and it lifts. Live cards make it breathe.
Size
52 × 52 px on cards · 40 × 40 on dashboard tiles · 34 × 34 on perf charts. Scales with the card's existing breakpoints — no new layout math.
Tint
Inherits --ch from the card (same variable that drives stripe, badge, fader). Pick a palette icon → it picks up the channel automatically.
Override
Optional per-card hex via the picker's color toggle. Stored as device.icon_color; falls back to --ch when null.