Frontend Design

Frontend Design

Use this skill to produce frontend work that feels intentionally designed rather than generic. The goal is not maximalism by default. The goal is a clear visual point of view that matches the product context and still ships as maintainable code.

Trigger

• New frontend surfaces where look and feel matter:
  • landing pages
  • dashboards
  • product pages
  • hero sections
  • marketing sites
  • polished application views
• Requests to beautify, restyle, refine, or modernize an existing UI
• Cases where the code must be working and production-usable, not just a mockup

Do Not Use

• Pure bug fixes, refactors, or backend tasks
• Review or audit requests
• Small code changes where the user did not ask for visual improvement
• Existing design-system work where the user only wants strict conformance and no meaningful visual interpretation

Workflow

1. If the request is visually underspecified, ask only the next 1-3 questions needed to clarify audience, tone, and acceptance criteria. Use requirement-interviewer when the ambiguity is material.
2. Read references/design-direction.md to choose one clear visual direction before coding.
3. Read references/aesthetics-guidelines.md for typography, color, motion, composition, and background treatment.
4. Read references/integration-guardrails.md before modifying an existing codebase, design system, or shared component surface.
5. For a new page or major redesign, use assets/templates/visual-brief.md to form a short visual brief before implementation.
6. Implement working code that matches the chosen direction and stays within project constraints.
7. Read references/delivery-checks.md before handing off.

Output Contract

• State the chosen visual direction in one short sentence when it meaningfully affects implementation.
• Produce working frontend code, not mood-board prose.
• Keep the implementation cohesive:
  • typography should support the direction
  • color should feel intentional
  • motion should be meaningful, not noisy
  • layout should feel composed rather than assembled from defaults
• When editing an existing product, preserve the established system unless the user explicitly wants a stronger redesign.

Guardrails

• Project design specification constraints, protected files, project stack rules, and user requirements remain hard boundaries.
• Respect the existing design system first. Only deviate when the request explicitly calls for redesign or the current surface clearly lacks a defined visual direction.
• Prefer minimal diffs for scoped tasks. Do not turn a local UI tweak into a whole-app restyle.
• Do not add new dependencies, font loaders, or animation libraries unless the task clearly justifies them.
• Avoid generic AI aesthetics:
  • default-looking font stacks for new standalone surfaces
  • timid palettes
  • predictable card grids with no visual idea
  • purple-gradient-on-white defaults
• Do not optimize for ornament over clarity. If visual flair hurts usability, accessibility, or maintainability, scale it back.