[chrisjsewell]

Update (0.8.0 decision): the legacy ^^^ / +++ separators now warn by default (design.card_legacy), so -W builds that use them fail until they move to card-header / card-footer or add suppress_warnings = ["design.card_legacy"]. The "zero behaviour change by default" wording below predates that decision.

Replaces the card directive's bespoke ^^^/+++ raw-line surgery with structural sub-directives, following the tab-set/tab-item pattern from the roadmap (#265 §4):

.. card:: Card title

   .. card-header::

      Header content

   Body content

   .. card-footer::

      Footer content

plus :header:/:footer: options for the one-liner case. The card body is parsed with a single ordinary nested_parse and slots are hoisted by doctree manipulation — no raw-text processing, so the structure is visible to formatters, linters, and any non-Python MyST implementation, and source-line attribution is finally correct (errors inside a footer report the footer's line; the old TODO set proper lines is gone).

Compatibility: zero behaviour change by default

• The legacy ^^^/+++ syntax remains default-on behind the new sd_card_legacy_separators confval. Review verified byte-identical doctrees vs main across a legacy stress corpus (rst + myst: header-only, footer-only, 4+ carets, separators in code blocks, grid-item-card, carousel).
• The strongest proof: the pre-existing snippet regression fixtures — generated from the legacy syntax — pass unchanged against the migrated snippet sources, with zero --force-regen drift, on sphinx 7.2.6 / 7.4.7 / 8.2.3.
• Using legacy separators emits a once-per-document, suppressible design.card_legacy deprecation (with inline remedies in the message), parallel-read-safe. Timeline: deprecated now → default off at 1.0 → removed at 2.0, documented with a migration table.
• Honest caveat, documented and surfaced in the warnings: while the flag is on, the raw-line pre-scan still runs, so a bare column-0 +++ inside a code block keeps mis-splitting (exactly as before) — the single-parse benefits are fully realized once you migrate and set sd_card_legacy_separators = False.
• Mixed syntax reconciles predictably: directives win with a warning, including slot directives nested inside legacy chunks (review-caught; now merged without doubled wrappers).

Review coverage

Two independent adversarial reviews (structural correctness; syntax compatibility/migration): no structural findings — the transient parse marker was proven absent from pickled doctrees at the raw-byte level across all error paths; the #281/#282 button-ref transforms work on slot content; gettext now extracts header/footer content (an i18n improvement); latex/text/man degrade cleanly. The private _create_component was renamed — a one-release alias is kept and the rename is changelog-noted for downstream.

Verification

• Full suite green on all three version rails (7.2.6 / 7.4.7 / 8.2.3, versions printed) + no-myst env
• 20 dedicated new tests (identity between syntaxes for card and grid-item-card, deprecation mechanics, mixed syntax, orphan warnings, line attribution, empty-slot errors, class dedupe)
• Docs fully migrated to the new syntax with a marked legacy section; -nW docs build green
• No CSS changes (slots reuse existing sd-card-header/sd-card-footer classes); artifact untouched

[codecov]

Codecov Report

❌ Patch coverage is 98.85057% with 2 lines in your changes missing coverage. Please review.
✅ Project coverage is 93.85%. Comparing base (2f473aa) to head (88058f7).

Files with missing lines	Patch %	Lines
sphinx_design/cards.py	98.84%	2 Missing ⚠️

Additional details and impacted files

@@            Coverage Diff             @@
##             main     #294      +/-   ##
==========================================
+ Coverage   93.43%   93.85%   +0.42%     
==========================================
  Files          16       16              
  Lines        1675     1823     +148     
==========================================
+ Hits         1565     1711     +146     
- Misses        110      112       +2     

Flag	Coverage Δ
pytests	93.85% <98.85%> (+0.42%)	⬆️

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