Design

Orchestrate a multi-agent design workflow to create or iterate on a design that meets project requirements.

Arguments

• Design name (required) - Slug for the design subdirectory (e.g., "user-auth", "payment-flow")
  • Creates/uses directory: memory-bank/planning/{name}/
  • If not provided, ask user for the design name or list existing designs
• Mode or focus area (optional)
  • new - Force creation of a new design from scratch (ignores existing design.md)
  • Any other text - Focus iteration on this specific area (e.g., "ux", "architecture", "types")
  • If not provided and design.md exists - Run general iteration to improve design
  • If not provided and no design.md - Run full new design workflow

Design Directory

All artifacts for a design are stored in memory-bank/planning/{name}/:

memory-bank/planning/{name}/
├── design.md                     # Current design document
├── design-draft.md               # Working draft (new design workflow)
├── research-*.md                 # Research agent outputs
├── review-*.md                   # Review outputs (new design)
└── iteration-review-*.md         # Iteration review outputs

Mode Selection

First, validate the design name and determine which mode to run:

Parse DESIGN_NAME and optional FOCUS_OR_MODE from the user's invocation.

if DESIGN_NAME is empty:
    → Search for existing designs: memory-bank/planning/*/design.md
    → If found, list them and ask user to select or provide a name
    → If none found, ask user for a new design name
    → Store selected/provided name as DESIGN_NAME

DESIGN_DIR = memory-bank/planning/{DESIGN_NAME}

if FOCUS_OR_MODE == "new":
    → Run NEW DESIGN WORKFLOW
else if file_exists("{DESIGN_DIR}/design.md"):
    → Run ITERATION WORKFLOW (with optional focus: FOCUS_OR_MODE)
else:
    → Run NEW DESIGN WORKFLOW

For the NEW workflow steps, read references/new-workflow.md. For the ITERATION workflow steps, read references/iteration-workflow.md.

Project Type Detection

Before running agents, detect project characteristics:

1. TypeScript: Check if tsconfig.json exists OR grep .kiro/steering/tech.md for "TypeScript"
2. Expo: Check if app.json contains "expo" key OR grep .kiro/steering/tech.md for "Expo"
3. Design System: Check if memory-bank/DESIGN-AGENTS.md contains design-system-file: and the referenced file exists

Store detection results for agent selection.

Agent Selection

Build the list of agents to use:

Universal agents (always include):

• ai-resources:design:requirements-validation-agent
• ai-resources:design:software-engineering-agent
• ai-resources:design:simplicity-advocate-agent
• ai-resources:design:testing-strategy-agent
• ai-resources:design:ux-usability-agent

Conditional agents (based on detection):

• If TypeScript detected: add ai-resources:design:typescript-type-safety-agent
• If Expo detected: add ai-resources:design:expo-best-practices-agent
• If Design System configured: add ai-resources:design:design-system-agent

Project-specific agents:

• Read memory-bank/DESIGN-AGENTS.md if it exists
• Add any agents listed under "## Research Agents" (research phase) and "## Review Agents" (review phases)
• These are project-local agents in .claude/agents/

Focus filtering (iteration mode): when the user provides a focus area, limit review to the matching agents; with no focus or "all", use all applicable agents.

• "ux", "ui", "usability", "interface" → ux-usability-agent, design-system-agent (if configured)
• "architecture", "code", "engineering" → software-engineering-agent, typescript-type-safety-agent, expo-best-practices-agent, testing-strategy-agent, simplicity-advocate-agent
• "requirements", "features" → requirements-validation-agent, simplicity-advocate-agent
• "type", "typescript", "types" → typescript-type-safety-agent
• "expo", "mobile" → expo-best-practices-agent
• "test", "testing" → testing-strategy-agent
• "simple", "complexity" → simplicity-advocate-agent

Agent Coordination Rules

1. Agents within a phase are independent and communicate only through files in {DESIGN_DIR}, so launch them together in a single batch of parallel delegation calls to minimize wall-clock time.
2. Phases are sequential: wait for every agent in a phase to complete before starting the next phase.
3. Context efficiency: agents read only the files they need.
4. Max iterations: run the review cycle at most 2 times per workflow invocation.

Error Handling

• Missing design name: List existing designs or ask user to provide a name
• Invalid design name: Must be a valid slug (lowercase, alphanumeric, hyphens)
• Missing requirements file: Ask the user for its location
• Missing DESIGN-AGENTS.md: Proceed with only universal + auto-detected agents
• Agent failure: Log error, continue with other agents, report at end
• No design.md for iteration: Switch to NEW DESIGN mode automatically
• Missing design directory: Create memory-bank/planning/{DESIGN_NAME}/ if it doesn't exist