Three elevation roles and the flat case. Every shadow in the engine reads one of these four, so depth is a four-line decision, not a per-component one. In 0.6.0 the toast, the drawer panel and the date-picker popover moved from shadow-lg to --elevation-overlay, which is shadow-md. Compare with ?shape_theme=soft.

--elevation-control
--elevation-raised
--elevation-overlay
--elevation-none

--elevation-control

Form controls: enough to lift an editable surface off the page, no more.

input
textarea
select
checkbox
radio

--elevation-raised

Surfaces that sit in the flow, and the buttons with a box: cards, stats cards, the floating sidebar, every filled button.

button primary
button outline
Card

Raised

card

Customers

1,204

+12 this week

stats card

--elevation-overlay

Things that float above the page: dropdown and combobox popovers, the date-picker popover, toasts, the drawer panel.

Scheduled
Friday at 5:57 PM
toast
Popover
popover surface

--elevation-none

Not the absence of a token: the ghost and link buttons, and the inset sidebar, declare it, so a theme can give even the flat case a shadow.

button ghost
button link