# Nuke Creative > Use when UI work should look designed, not generated — "make it beautiful", "awwwards level", "distinctive", "premium", a landing page, hero, marketing site, portfolio, or any interface where visual quality is part of the ask — or when generated UI keeps arriving as the same centered hero, gradient-on-dark, glass cards, and default fonts. Also loadable as a charter by implementer roles touching UI files inside other nuke skills. - Skill: `b4r7x/nuke-creative` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 5 files) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add b4r7x/nuke-creative` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/b4r7x/nuke-creative/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: Marketing & Growth - Author: b4r7x (https://skillmd.com/u/b4r7x) - Updated: 2026-09-17 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/b4r7x/nuke-creative --- # Nuke Creative The family doctrine pointed at a different failure (map: references/family-map.md — creative picks the direction; nuke-design carries the render-side build craft). Elsewhere cheap generation fails toward bugs; on UI it fails toward the **default**: the same centered hero, the same gradient, the same three-card grid every model produces when nobody forces divergence. So the protocol forces it — commit to a direction before code, ban the defaults by name, and put a fresh critic with a screenshot between the code and the word "done". Rendered output is the material under judgment; code review alone judges the wrong artifact. ## Modes Tier vocabulary and platform mechanics: references/model-tiers.md. | | **light** (default) | **full** | |---|---|---| | Shape | in-session discipline — no preflight, no run_dir, like nuke-lean | preflighted ceremony with concept wave | | Direction | the session writes the brief + ≥3 directions itself | 3 concept agents (session), assigned stances, one artifact each | | Judge | the session picks, reason named in the brief | 1 judge (top) scores against the brief | | Implementer | the session | worker+, loaded with the winning concept | | Critic | 1 fresh agent (session) | fresh critic (top) | | Critique cycles | cap 2 | cap 3 | | Typical trigger | any UI task where look matters | "awwwards", "best you can do", flagship pages | `plan` (full only) → run preflight, print the plan block, STOP. `--ask` → pause at the plan for confirmation; default is no gate — the plan prints and the run starts (references/preflight.md). ## The brief — before any direction Four lines, written down, never skipped: **audience** (who judges this), **feel** (2–3 adjectives the design must earn — "precise, fast, quietly confident"), **one reference point** (a real site, era, or aesthetic school — not "clean and modern"), **constraints** (brand tokens, existing design system, a11y level, performance budget). An existing design system or brand guideline caps divergence: the brief then targets the most distinctive design *inside* those tokens, and directions explore layout, motion, and hierarchy instead of palette and type. ## Diverge — ≥3 directions, assigned stances Before any code, ≥3 genuinely different directions, each committing to: **type pairing** (display + body, named) · **palette** (dominant + accent, values) · **layout stance** (what breaks the expected grid) · **one signature element** (the thing a viewer remembers). Directions are forced apart by assigned stances — pick 3 that fit the brief, e.g.: `editorial` (type-led, print rhythm) / `brutalist` (raw, high-contrast, exposed structure) / `retro-futurist` (a named era's futurism) / `luxury` (restraint, space, serif authority) / `playful` (shape-led, motion-led) / `technical` (data-dense, monospace, engineered). Two directions that differ only in accent color are one direction. Pick one, name why in one line, and record the runner-up. The winner is a commitment: every later choice (spacing, motion, empty states) answers to it. ## The anti-default gate — countable, checked before ship The direction must clear every row. A row it cannot clear is a redesign, not a caveat: 1. **Type:** neither font is Inter/Roboto/Open Sans/system-ui default (body may stay system only when the brief's constraints mandate it — then display must carry the identity). 2. **Palette:** not the blue-purple gradient on dark navy; accent count ≤2; colors picked, not defaulted. 3. **Layout:** at least one deliberate break from the centered-hero / three-card-grid template — asymmetry, overlap, diagonal flow, oversized type, unexpected density. 4. **Signature:** the one memorable element exists and is nameable in a sentence. 5. **Cliché scan:** no glassmorphism-because-default, no emoji-as-feature-icons, no placeholder "Lorem"-grade copy — microcopy is part of the design. 6. **Motion:** if present, it has one concept applied consistently — not a pile of unrelated fade-ins; `prefers-reduced-motion` respected. ## The floor — creativity never trades these Non-negotiable, checked by the critic: WCAG contrast (AA unless the brief says otherwise) · visible focus states · real responsive behavior (mobile is a layout, not a shrink) · semantic HTML under the styling · performance sanity (no multi-MB hero assets, no layout thrash). A stunning direction that fails the floor is a failing direction. ## Critique loop — before the word "done" 1. **Render it.** Screenshot the result at desktop + mobile widths (browser tooling per the platform — Playwright-class skill, chrome-devtools, or the harness's screenshot tool). No rendering available → the critic reads the code and its verdict is marked `critic: static (degraded)`. 2. **Fresh critic** — never the authoring context. It receives the brief, the chosen direction, the anti-default gate, the floor, and the screenshots — not the author's reasoning. Charter, in order: does the render *earn the brief's feel adjectives*? does it clear every gate row? does it hold the floor? Verdict per item (`earned | missed`, gate rows `pass | fail`), each with what to change — concrete ("the hero type is timid: 96px minimum at this layout"), never "polish it". 3. **Fix and re-critique.** Cap per the mode table. Cap hit → honest hand-back: what the design earns, what it still misses. Never "looks great" past a failed gate row. Hand-back carries: the brief, the chosen direction + named reason, gate result, critic verdict per cycle, screenshots' paths. ## Full mode — the ceremony Read references/preflight.md; run its plan-then-apply gate (scope = the surfaces to design, brief inputs, the design-amplifier skill map per references/stack-adapters.md; `run_dir = .nuke/--creative-/`). Then: 1. **Brief** as above, written to `brief.md` — with the user, not for them: ambiguous feel or audience → ask, up to 3 questions. 2. **Concept wave:** 3 concept agents (session tier), each assigned a different stance from the diverge list, each producing a self-contained concept artifact (a static comp: one HTML file or equivalent) plus its direction sheet (type/palette/layout/signature). Concepts are throwaway by design — the deliverable is the direction, proven by a render. 3. **Judge** (top): scores each concept against the brief's feel words, the gate, and the floor — evidence from the renders, never eloquence. Picks the winner; may transplant one named element from a loser. Dissent note recorded in `brief.md`. 4. **Implement** the winning direction on the real stack (worker+ implementers; mapped stack skills and design amplifiers are mandatory loads). 5. **Critique loop** as above, critic at top, cap 3. Artifacts (brief, direction sheets, screenshots, critic verdicts) live in the run_dir. ## As a charter (loaded by other skills) An implementer role in nuke-code, nuke-exec, or nuke-verify touching UI files loads this skill when the task is visual (new component, page, landing, restyle): it applies the brief (compressed to one line), one direction chosen from two, the anti-default gate, and the floor — no concept wave, and the engaged loop's own validator doubles as the critic, given the gate and the floor as extra charter rows. Pure logic changes inside UI files: the gate does not apply. ## Rationalizations | Excuse | Reality | |---|---| | "Clean and minimal is a style" | Unchosen minimal is the default wearing a compliment. Minimal chosen against a brief names its type, spacing scale, and signature. | | "The gradient looks good" | It looks *familiar* — it is the median of the training set. The gate exists precisely because it feels good. | | "No time for three directions" | Directions are sentences, not comps. Ten minutes of divergence is cheaper than one templated result. | | "It passed the linter and renders fine" | Rendering is the entry ticket. The material under judgment is the screenshot against the brief. | | "Users don't care about fonts" | They don't name the font; they feel the sameness. Distinctiveness is the brief's point. | ## When NOT to apply - Internal tools, admin CRUD, and dashboards where the brief is genuinely "fast and conventional" — there the design system IS the direction; consistency beats distinctiveness. - A repo with a strict design system and the task is one more component inside it — follow the system; the gate would fight documented intent. - Non-visual work in UI files (logic, data wiring) — nuke-code's ordinary loop governs.