The same 47 coloured surfaces on both sides of the divider — the only variable is where the colour lives. 47 literals are 47 decisions and three of them get missed without erroring; one token is one decision, finished at step two while the other column is still hunting a dark-mode hover a week later.
they part company here — where the colour lives
Literals
the colour lives everywhere
The 47th literal ships to production, in the wrong colour.
One token
the colour lives once
The rebrand ended a week ago, at step two.
a week laterA customer screenshots the old blue on a dark-mode hover. The fix is one more edit — plus the knowledge that there is no way to know it was the last one. That certainty is what the token was.
Both columns hold the same 47 coloured surfaces. The difference is how many PLACES the decision was made: 47 literals are 47 decisions, and a missed one does not error — it just sits there quietly wrong until a dark-mode hover exposes it. One token is one decision, which is why the right side was finished before the left side had opened its editor. Consistency grows up from the bottom of the ladder, or it does not grow at all.