Blog Post Card Styling Design

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Goal: Restyle the blog post card to match blog-post-card.png — a vertical card with a featured image on top and a solid blue content area below containing the title, byline, and a "Read more" link in orange.

Architecture: A targeted CSS update to styles/components/post-list.css (the card body, title, byline, and a new .post-list__read-more rule), and a one-line markup addition in index.php to render the "Read more" anchor. No template structure changes. No new Playwright tests beyond a single new assertion in the existing tests/blog-page.spec.js.

Tech Stack: WordPress 6.x, PHP 8.x, Tailwind CSS v4, Playwright, axe-core, PHPCS (WordPress standard).

Global Constraints

Tabs for PHP indentation (project standard).
The theme's Tailwind build outputs static/dist/theme.css; that file is gitignored but committed with git add -f per project convention.
PHPCS uses the WordPress coding standard; composer lint must pass. Pre-existing CRLF errors on untouched files are out of scope.
All design colors use the project's existing CSS custom properties from styles/base/colors.css. No hardcoded hex values for theme colors.
The card width behavior stays the same: grid-cols-[repeat(auto-fit,minmax(20rem,1fr))]. No layout refactor.
The "Read more" link reuses the post's permalink — it's the same destination as the title link.
The H1 ("Blog" page title) and search.php are explicitly out of scope for this change. The working tree currently has the H1 removed and search.php untouched; this design does not address either.

Reference Mockup

blog-post-card.png (426×644, vertical 2:3) at the theme root. The mockup shows:

Image area (top ~38%): light gray placeholder. Real implementation uses the post's featured image via has_post_thumbnail().
Content area (bottom ~62%): solid #90c9e7 background. This color is the hex equivalent of --color-cwc-blue-03 (oklch(80.63% 0.0724 230.4)).
Title: multi-line, dark blue text (matches --color-cwc-blue-01).
Byline: smaller dark text near the bottom of the content area.
"Read more" link: orange (#d24d32, matches --color-secondary / --color-cwc-orange-01) at the bottom-left of the card.

File Structure

File	Responsibility	Created/Modified
`styles/components/post-list.css`	Add card body, title, byline, and `.post-list__read-more` styles.	Modify
`index.php`	Add a "Read more" link after the byline in `.post-list__details`.	Modify
`static/dist/theme.css`	Rebuilt via `npm run build`.	Modified (committed with `git add -f`).
`tests/blog-page.spec.js`	Add a single assertion that the "Read more" link exists in the first card.	Modify

Design Details

CSS additions to `styles/components/post-list.css`

The card already has the following structure (from index.php):

<div class="post-list__post flex flex-col border border-secondary rounded-md shadow-lg ...">
    <figure class="post-list__img aspect-video border-b border-secondary rounded-t-md ...">
        <img class="...">
    </figure>
    <div class="post-list__details px-4 py-6 flex flex-col grow">
        <a href="..."><h2 class="post-list__title ...">Title</h2></a>
        <div class="post-list__byline mt-auto">
            <span class="post-list__author">Author</span>
            <span class="post-list__date">Date</span>
        </div>
    </div>
</div>

The styling changes:

.post-list__post — Override the gray border-secondary so the card border disappears (the blue background extends edge-to-edge inside the card). Keep the rounded corners and shadow. The current classes in index.php set border border-secondary; we override via CSS to border-color: var(--color-cwc-blue-03).
.post-list__post and .post-list__img — Set border: 0 (or border-color: transparent) on the figure so the existing border-b border-secondary does not show. The visual change is that the image and the blue content area flow as separate blocks without a divider line between them. The card itself keeps its rounded-md corners; the figure keeps rounded-t-md so the image rounds with the card.
.post-list__title — Set color: var(--color-cwc-blue-01), font-weight: 700 (override the font-normal in the markup). Keep the existing text-25px size and line-clamp-4 truncation. The title is the project's standard H2 typography.
.post-list__byline — Set color: var(--color-cwc-blue-01), font-size: 0.875rem (smaller than the title, but readable on the blue background). Keep mt-auto so the byline sits at the bottom of the available space.
.post-list__read-more (new) — color: var(--color-secondary), font-weight: 600, margin-top: 0.75rem, text-decoration: none. Hover: underline. The text content is "Read more →" (em dash and arrow, no period).

Markup change in `index.php`

Inside .post-list__details, after the .post-list__byline div, add:

<a class="post-list__read-more" href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>">Read more &rarr;</a>

No other markup changes. The title link, image, byline, and pagination are untouched.

What stays the same

Card structure: figure for image, div.post-list__details for content.
Grid layout: grid-cols-[repeat(auto-fit,minmax(20rem,1fr))] gap-6.
Image aspect ratio: aspect-video (16:9).
Image hover effect: hover:prose-img:scale-110 with duration-500 transition.
Empty state ("Nothing here yet…").
Pagination.
Card padding: px-4 py-6 on .post-list__details.
The H1 / search.php / sidebar — all untouched.

Test updates

Add a single assertion to the desktop test in tests/blog-page.spec.js:

// First card has a "Read more" link.
await expect(firstCard.locator(".post-list__read-more")).toBeVisible();
await expect(firstCard.locator(".post-list__read-more")).toHaveAttribute(
    "href",
    /\/[a-z0-9-]+\/?$/
);

No new spec file. The existing 4 tests stay as they are.

Out of Scope

The H1 page title — the working tree currently has the H1 markup removed. The previous blog plan added it (commit 66073c0) and the design tokens (commit cb0c886); both are present in git history. Whether to re-add the H1 is a separate decision.
search.php — still a separate template, still has the old card structure, still has the $featimg case-sensitivity bug. Separate work.
static/dist/theme.css pre-existing changes from other work in the working tree (header.php, views/partials/page-hero-services.php, etc.) are unrelated and not touched.
Dark mode.
Animations on the "Read more" link beyond a basic underline-on-hover.
The H2 font family (Quincy vs sans) — the existing card uses the default font family for the title. The mockup's title appears to be a clean sans-serif weight-700. We do not change the font family.

Self-Review Notes

Spec coverage: One CSS file, one PHP file, one test file, one dist rebuild. Every spec section is covered.
Placeholder scan: No "TBD", "TODO", or vague requirements. The "→" arrow and "Read more" text are spelled out explicitly.
Type consistency: Class names follow the existing BEM convention (__read-more).
Spec section "Out of Scope" is explicit: H1, search.php, dark mode, font family changes, animations — all out.
Design tokens: All colors reference existing CSS custom properties. No new colors introduced.
Indentation: Tabs for PHP (project standard).

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