Design Engineering

Design Engineering

Premium design engineering for agentic workflows. Produce distinctive, high-end interfaces — not generic AI output — using DESIGN.md as the portable design contract across three complementary tools.

DESIGN.md (contract) ─────────────────────────────────────────────────
    │                         │                        │
    ▼                         ▼                        ▼
  Stitch                   Pencil                    Figma
  (explore)              (design in IDE)         (refine + handoff)
    │                         │                        │
    └─────────────────────────┴────────────────────────┘
                              │
                              ▼
                    Production Code
                 (validated via screenshots)

Quick Start

1. Create or Load DESIGN.md

Every project needs a DESIGN.md at its root. Generate one from an existing project:

# From existing code (read globals.css, extract tokens)
# Agent analyzes CSS → generates DESIGN.md in Stitch spec format

# From a reference website (via Stitch)
# Use stitch-design skill → extract_design_context → synthesize DESIGN.md

# From a Figma file
# Use Figma MCP → get_variable_defs + get_design_context → synthesize DESIGN.md

2. Design Pipeline

3. Validate Design Quality

After every major design step, run the Premium Design Checklist:

• No generic AI aesthetic (purple gradients on white, stock photos, identical cards)
• Consistent atmospheric hue across all neutral surfaces (never pure gray)
• Maximum 2-3 saturated brand colors + semantic states
• Custom typography (not Inter/Roboto/Arial defaults)
• Glass/material metaphor with deliberate restraint (3-5 glass surfaces per viewport)
• Tiered animation timing (150ms hover → 250ms transition → 500ms morph → 1500ms ambient)
• WCAG 2.2 AA: 4.5:1 text contrast, visible focus indicators, 24x24px touch targets
• Reduced motion: prefers-reduced-motion disables all animation
• Mobile-first: 16px min font on inputs, responsive breakpoints tested

The DESIGN.md Specification

DESIGN.md is a portable, agent-friendly markdown file following Google Stitch's five-section format. It captures a project's visual identity in terms readable by both humans and AI agents.

Required Sections

Writing Rules

• Evocative names: "Resonant AI Blue" not "blue"; "Abyssal Indigo" not "dark background"
• Precise values in parens: oklch(0.55 0.25 260) / #0066ff after every descriptive name
• Functional purpose: Every color/component explains what it's used for
• Physical descriptions: "Pill-shaped" not rounded-full; "Whisper-soft shadows" not shadow-sm
• Never raw CSS class names: Translate all technical values into design language

How Agents Use DESIGN.md

1. Read DESIGN.md at the start of every design or frontend task
2. Apply tokens — use the exact color values, font stacks, spacing units, and animation timings
3. Follow component patterns — buttons, cards, inputs should match the described styling
4. Validate against it — every generated component should pass a visual audit against the spec
5. Update it — when the design system evolves, keep DESIGN.md current

Multi-Tool Pipeline

Pencil MCP (Design in IDE)

Agent-native vector design on an infinite canvas. .pen files are JSON, live in Git, and are read/written via MCP tools.

Core workflow:

1. get_editor_state() — understand current context
2. get_guidelines("web-app") — load design rules for your project type
3. get_style_guide_tags → get_style_guide(tags) — choose aesthetic direction
4. set_variables(...) — set design tokens from DESIGN.md
5. find_empty_space_on_canvas(...) — locate placement for new frames
6. batch_design(operations) — create/modify design (max 25 ops per call)
7. get_screenshot(nodeId) — validate visually after every major step
8. snapshot_layout() — verify computed positions, detect clipping/overflow

Design-to-code: Agent reads .pen tree via batch_get, extracts layout/styling, generates React + Tailwind components referencing DESIGN.md tokens.

Key rules:

• Always take screenshots after major design steps
• Keep batch_design to max 25 operations per call
• Use realistic content, never "Lorem ipsum"
• Name layers semantically ("UserAvatarImage" not "Rectangle 12")
• Desktop-first at 1440px unless mobile-first specified
• Mark reusable patterns with reusable: true

Figma MCP (Refine + Handoff)

Industry-standard design tool with official MCP server for agent integration.

Setup:

# Official Figma MCP (hosted, OAuth)
claude mcp add --transport http figma https://mcp.figma.com/mcp

# Framelink (community, most popular, 90% payload compression)
claude mcp add figma-framelink -- npx figma-developer-mcp --figma-api-key=YOUR_KEY

Core workflow:

1. get_design_context(url) — extract layout/styling for a frame (React + Tailwind default)
2. get_variable_defs(url) — read design tokens (colors, spacing, typography)
3. get_code_connect_map(url) — map Figma components → codebase components
4. get_screenshot(url) — visual snapshot for fidelity validation
5. create_design_system_rules(url) — generate agent-readable rules file

Design tokens pipeline:

Figma Variables → REST API / plugin → DTCG JSON → Style Dictionary → CSS / iOS / Android

Google Stitch (Vibe Exploration)

AI-native design platform for rapid UI exploration from natural language.

Setup:

# Install skills (already done globally)
npx skills add google-labs-code/stitch-skills --yes --global

# MCP server
npx @_davideast/stitch-mcp init
# or set STITCH_API_KEY and configure manually

Core workflow:

1. Describe a goal, feeling, or inspiration — not a wireframe
2. Stitch generates multiple high-fidelity UI directions
3. Extract design DNA via extract_design_context
4. Synthesize into DESIGN.md via the design-md skill
5. Export to Figma (with Auto Layout) or download HTML/CSS

DESIGN.md generation pipeline (5 stages): Retrieval → Extraction → Translation → Synthesis → Alignment

Premium Design Principles

What Makes Design Look Premium

1. Deliberate restraint — every element earns its place; nothing is there by default
2. Material metaphor — surfaces feel like glass, paper, stone, or metal — not flat rectangles
3. Atmospheric hue — never pure gray; always a subtle color tint in neutrals (e.g., 275-hue blue-purple)
4. Micro-detail precision — kerning, line spacing ratios, shadow angles, border opacities all consciously chosen
5. Custom typography — distinctive font pairing that immediately separates from generic defaults
6. Interaction choreography — tiered animation timing creates rhythm and hierarchy
7. Light simulation — top-edge gradient highlights on glass surfaces simulate physical light
8. Dominant + accent — one strong brand color with sharp accents, never evenly distributed

What Makes Design Look Generic AI (Avoid These)

Color System Principles

• Define all colors in OKLCH (perceptually uniform lightness)
• Provide hex fallbacks via @supports not (color: oklch())
• Enhance brand colors on P3 displays via @media (color-gamut: p3)
• Limit saturated colors to 2-3 brand + 4 semantic (success, warning, error, info)
• Maintain a consistent hue undertone across all neutral surfaces

Typography Principles

• Pair a confident display face (headings) with a precise body face
• Establish explicit weight hierarchy: Display (SemiBold), Body (Regular), UI Labels (Medium)
• Set text-rendering: optimizeLegibility, antialiased smoothing
• Use text-wrap: balance for headlines
• Minimum 16px font on mobile inputs to prevent iOS Safari zoom

Accessibility Enforcement (WCAG 2.2 AA)

These are non-negotiable in every design:

Color Contrast

• Normal text: 4.5:1 minimum contrast ratio
• Large text (18pt+ or 14pt+ bold): 3:1 minimum
• UI components and graphics: 3:1 minimum

Focus Indicators

• Visible focus on all interactive elements (2px solid outline, 2px offset)
• 3:1 contrast between focused and unfocused states
• Never trap or hide focus

Keyboard & Navigation

• All functionality available via keyboard
• Logical tab order
• Skip navigation links on content-heavy pages

Touch Targets

• Minimum 24x24 CSS pixels (WCAG 2.2 AA)
• Recommended 44x44px (Apple HIG) / 48x48dp (Material)

Motion

• Comprehensive prefers-reduced-motion support
• Collapse all animation to 0.01ms duration
• Disable hover transforms in reduced motion mode

Semantic HTML

• aria-invalid for error identification
• required / aria-required for required fields
• ARIA live regions for status messages

Visual Validation Workflow

After Every Major Design Step:

1. Screenshot — use Pencil get_screenshot or browser screenshot tools
2. Layout inspection — use Pencil snapshot_layout(problemsOnly: true) to detect clipping/overflow
3. Token audit — use search_all_unique_properties to find raw hex values that should be tokenized
4. Contrast check — verify all text/background combinations meet WCAG ratios
5. Responsive test — validate at 375px (mobile), 768px (tablet), 1440px (desktop)
6. Dark/light mode — verify both themes maintain contrast and readability

Design Token Audit

search_all_unique_properties → find leaked raw values
replace_all_matching_properties → tokenize to variable references
get_variables → verify all tokens are defined

Animation System

Timing Tiers

Rules

• Every animation must serve navigation, feedback, or attention — no decorative-only motion
• Use CSS transitions for standard elements; Motion library for React orchestration
• Never animate width, height, top, left — use transform and opacity only
• Use will-change sparingly and remove after animation completes
• Stagger entrance animations by 50-100ms per element for cascading reveals

Design Token Architecture

Three-layer token structure (Martin Fowler's framework):

Token Flow

DESIGN.md (specification)
    ↓
globals.css (CSS custom properties)
    ↓
@theme inline (Tailwind v4 mapping)
    ↓
Component code (utility classes + cva variants)

Cross-Tool Sync

Resources

references/

• design-md-spec.md — Full DESIGN.md specification with examples and writing rules
• pencil-mcp-reference.md — Complete Pencil MCP tool reference, batch_design syntax, .pen format
• figma-mcp-reference.md — Figma MCP ecosystem (official + community), Code Connect, Variables API
• stitch-integration.md — Stitch MCP server, SDK, skills, vibe design methodology
• premium-design-principles.md — Anti-generic patterns, material metaphors, atmospheric coherence
• accessibility-enforcement.md — WCAG 2.2 AA checklist, automated enforcement strategies
• visual-validation.md — Screenshot workflows, layout inspection, token auditing, responsive testing