Octopus UI UX Design

EXECUTION CONTRACT (MANDATORY - CANNOT SKIP)

This skill uses ENFORCED execution mode. You MUST follow this exact sequence.

STEP 1: Interactive Questions (BLOCKING)

You MUST call AskUserQuestion before any other action.

AskUserQuestion({
  questions: [
    {
      question: "What type of product are you designing for?",
      header: "Product Type",
      multiSelect: false,
      options: [
        {label: "SaaS/Dashboard", description: "Analytics, admin panels, B2B tools"},
        {label: "E-commerce", description: "Shopping, marketplace, product pages"},
        {label: "Landing page", description: "Marketing, conversion, product launch"},
        {label: "Mobile app", description: "iOS/Android native or responsive"}
      ]
    },
    {
      question: "What tech stack are you using?",
      header: "Stack",
      multiSelect: false,
      options: [
        {label: "React + Tailwind (Recommended)", description: "React/Next.js with Tailwind CSS"},
        {label: "React + shadcn/ui", description: "React with shadcn component library"},
        {label: "HTML + Tailwind", description: "Static or server-rendered HTML"},
        {label: "Vue/Nuxt", description: "Vue.js or Nuxt framework"}
      ]
    },
    {
      question: "What design deliverables do you need?",
      header: "Deliverables",
      multiSelect: true,
      options: [
        {label: "Design tokens", description: "Colors, spacing, typography as CSS/Tailwind config"},
        {label: "Component specs", description: "Component anatomy, states, props"},
        {label: "Page layouts", description: "Wireframe-level layout specifications"},
        {label: "Style guide", description: "Visual style direction with rationale"}
      ]
    },
    {
      question: "How adventurous should the design be?",
      header: "Dials",
      multiSelect: false,
      options: [
        {label: "Conservative (v3 m2 d4)", description: "Familiar patterns, minimal motion — enterprise, gov, finance"},
        {label: "Balanced (v5 m4 d5)", description: "Contemporary but safe — most SaaS and product work"},
        {label: "Expressive (v7 m6 d5)", description: "Distinctive direction, noticeable motion — marketing, launch pages"},
        {label: "Maximal (v9 m8 d6)", description: "Take real aesthetic risks — portfolios, creative brands"}
      ]
    }
  ]
})

The dial answer maps to --variance/--motion/--density values (v/m/d above) passed to every search.py call and stated in the design direction. When the user's brief already names a visual style (for example, "brutalist", "playful", or "corporate"), skip the Dials question and infer all three values from that style. Record the inferred values. If an explicit user answer is also available, the explicit user answer takes precedence over the inferred values. Otherwise, ask the Dials question normally.

All three dial values MUST be integers from 1 through 10. Use these presets when inferring from named styles; choose the closest row for synonyms and record the selected row with the values:

Validate the range before every search.py call. If an explicit or inferred value is missing, non-numeric, or outside 1-10, stop and obtain a valid value rather than clamp it.

STEP 2: Display Banner

MANDATORY: You MUST use the Bash tool to run this provider check BEFORE displaying the banner. Do NOT skip it. Do NOT assume availability.

bash "${HOME}/.claude-octopus/plugin/scripts/helpers/check-providers.sh"

Use the ACTUAL results below. PROHIBITED: Showing only "🔵 Claude: Available ✓" without listing all providers.

🐙 **CLAUDE OCTOPUS ACTIVATED** - UI/UX Design Mode
🎨 Design: [Brief description from user prompt]

Pipeline:
🔍 Phase 1: Design Research (BM25 search + context detection)
🎯 Phase 2: Design Direction (synthesis + style selection)
🐙 Phase 2b: Design Critique (adversarial review before committing)
🛠️ Phase 3: Design System (tokens, components, layouts)
✅ Phase 4: Validation (accessibility, handoff specs)

Providers:
🔴 Codex CLI: [Available ✓ / Not installed ✗] — Implementation critique
🟡 Antigravity CLI: [Available ✓ / Not installed ✗] — Ecosystem critique
🧭 Antigravity CLI: [Available ✓ / Not installed ✗] — Additional external-model challenge
🔵 Claude (Sonnet): Available ✓ — Design + independent critique

Tools:
🔍 BM25 Design Intelligence: [checking...]
🎨 Figma MCP: [Available / Not configured]
🧩 shadcn MCP: [Available / Not configured]

STEP 3: Check Design Intelligence

SEARCH_PY="${HOME}/.claude-octopus/plugin/vendors/ui-ux-pro-max-skill/src/ui-ux-pro-max/scripts/search.py"
if [ -f "$SEARCH_PY" ]; then
    python3 -c "import csv, re, math" 2>/dev/null && echo "READY" || echo "MISSING_PYTHON"
else
    echo "MISSING_SEARCH_PY"
fi

If MISSING_SEARCH_PY: The vendored design intelligence files are missing — tell the user to reinstall or update the plugin (the vendors/ui-ux-pro-max-skill/ directory ships with it as plain files). If MISSING_PYTHON: Tell user python3 is required for design intelligence.

Both missing states terminate this workflow after reporting the remediation. Only continue to Step 4 when preflight returns READY.

STEP 4: Phase 1 — Discover (Design Research)

You MUST execute at least 3 of these searches. This is NOT optional.

SEARCH_PY="${HOME}/.claude-octopus/plugin/vendors/ui-ux-pro-max-skill/src/ui-ux-pro-max/scripts/search.py"

# 1. Product type search — what design patterns fit this product?
python3 "$SEARCH_PY" "<user's product description>" --domain product

# 2. Style search — what visual styles match?
python3 "$SEARCH_PY" "<user's aesthetic or product type>" --domain style

# 3. Color palette search — data-driven palette selection
python3 "$SEARCH_PY" "<user's product type or mood>" --domain color

# 4. Typography search — font pairings
python3 "$SEARCH_PY" "<user's product type>" --domain typography

# 5. UX guidelines search — relevant best practices
python3 "$SEARCH_PY" "<key user flow>" --domain ux

# 6. Stack-specific search (if user specified a stack)
python3 "$SEARCH_PY" "<user's requirements>" --stack <stack>

# 7. Full design-system draft with the dials from Step 1 (v2.11.0+)
python3 "$SEARCH_PY" "<user's product description>" --design-system \
  --variance <v> --motion <m> --density <d>

If user provided a Figma URL, also pull design context:

• Use get_design_context from Figma MCP to pull existing designs
• Use get_screenshot for visual reference

Collect all search results before proceeding to Phase 2.

STEP 4b: Design Shotgun Mode (Auto-Activated When 3+ Providers Available)

This step runs automatically when the provider check in Step 2 detected 3 or more available providers (counting Claude as always available). When fewer than 3 providers are available, skip to Step 5 and use standard single-direction mode.

Dispatch the same design brief to multiple providers in parallel. Each provider generates an independent design direction without seeing the others' work.

Launch 3+ variant agents in parallel using the Agent tool with run_in_background: true:

Each agent receives:

Design a visual direction for: [user's product description]
Product type: [from Step 1]
Stack: [from Step 1]
Search context: [key findings from Step 4 BM25 searches]

Produce:
1. A style name (2-3 words, e.g., "Warm Minimalism", "Bold Industrial", "Cobalt Editorial")
2. Primary color palette (3-5 colors with hex values)
3. Font pairing (heading + body)
4. Layout philosophy (e.g., "generous whitespace with card-based content")
5. One paragraph describing the overall feel

Be distinctive — take a clear position rather than playing it safe.

Hard constraints (see skills/blocks/design-taste.md): do NOT produce any of the three
AI-slop looks (cream+serif+terracotta, near-black+acid accent, purple-violet gradients),
and do not default to Inter, Roboto, Space Grotesk, Fraunces, or Instrument Serif
without a brief-tied reason.

Dispatch to different providers for maximum diversity:

• 🔴 Codex: implementation-pragmatic direction (what builds fast and scales)
• 🧭 Antigravity: trend-aware direction (what's current in the design ecosystem)
• 🔵 Claude: user-centered direction (what serves the audience best)
• 🟤 OpenCode / 🟢 Copilot / 🟣 Qwen: additional variants if available

After all variants return, bind each complete returned result to its provider. Record the providers as VARIANT_A_PROVIDER, VARIANT_B_PROVIDER, and VARIANT_C_PROVIDER, and record the corresponding complete outputs as VARIANT_A_RESULT, VARIANT_B_RESULT, and VARIANT_C_RESULT. Each result must contain the returned style name, palette, fonts, layout philosophy, and feel. If a field is missing, ask that agent to complete its result; do not invent or substitute example content. Present a comparison board using those actual values:

🎨 **Design Shotgun — 3 Variants**

━━━ Variant A (${VARIANT_A_PROVIDER}) ━━━
${VARIANT_A_RESULT}

━━━ Variant B (${VARIANT_B_PROVIDER}) ━━━
${VARIANT_B_RESULT}

━━━ Variant C (${VARIANT_C_PROVIDER}) ━━━
${VARIANT_C_RESULT}

Then ask the user to choose:

AskUserQuestion({
  questions: [{
    question: "Which design direction do you prefer?",
    header: "Pick",
    multiSelect: false,
    options: [
      {label: "Variant A", description: "[style name] — [one-line feel]"},
      {label: "Variant B", description: "[style name] — [one-line feel]"},
      {label: "Variant C", description: "[style name] — [one-line feel]"},
      {label: "Mix & match", description: "Take elements from multiple variants"}
    ]
  }]
})

After selection, proceed to Step 5 using the chosen variant as the design direction. If "Mix & match", ask which elements to combine before proceeding.

STEP 5: Phase 2 — Define (Design Direction)

Synthesize search results (and chosen variant if shotgun mode) into a design direction document:

1. Style recommendation — which visual style best fits the product (cite search results)
2. Color palette — selected palette with hex values and contrast ratios
3. Typography — heading + body font pairing with Google Fonts import
4. Layout approach — grid system, spacing scale, responsive strategy
5. Design principles — 3-5 guiding principles derived from UX search results
6. Taste compliance — one line confirming the direction passes skills/blocks/design-taste.md (not one of the three banned looks; no unjustified banned-default fonts; boldness spent in one place)

Output: Write the design direction as a structured section you can reference in the next step.

STEP 5b: Design Critique — Three-Way Adversarial Review (MANDATORY)

This step runs by default. Before committing to the design direction, it must survive adversarial critique from up to three independent perspectives. This catches accessibility failures, impractical choices, and BM25 blind spots before they get baked into tokens and components.

Critique prompt (sent to all participants):

Review this proposed design direction and find problems. Be adversarial — your job is to catch flaws, not validate choices.

[The full design direction from Step 5]

Critique dimensions:
1. ACCESSIBILITY — Do the proposed colors meet WCAG AA contrast ratios (4.5:1 text, 3:1 large text)? Are the font sizes readable at the proposed scale? Are touch targets viable?
2. PRACTICALITY — Does this typography actually render well on the stated tech stack? Are the fonts available and performant (file size, loading)? Does the spacing scale work with the layout system?
3. FIT — Does the visual style actually match the product type and audience? Would a user of [product type] feel comfortable with this aesthetic?
4. GAPS — What did the research miss? Are there common UX patterns for this product type that aren't addressed? Are there competitive norms being ignored?
5. SLOP — Run the checklist in skills/blocks/design-taste.md. Is this one of the three AI-slop looks (cream+serif+terracotta, near-black+acid, purple gradients)? Banned default fonts without a stated reason? Would another model given the same brief land on the same palette and fonts? Two or more checklist misses fail the direction.

For each issue found, state: what's wrong, why it matters, and what to do instead.

Three participants, run in parallel:

# Check provider availability
providers=()
command -v codex >/dev/null 2>&1 && providers+=(codex)
command -v agy >/dev/null 2>&1 && providers+=(agy)

for provider in "${providers[@]}"; do
    safe_provider=$(printf '%s' "$provider" | tr -c '[:alnum:]_-' '_')
    "${HOME}/.claude-octopus/plugin/scripts/orchestrate.sh" spawn "$provider" \
      "<critique prompt>" > "/tmp/design-critique-${safe_provider}.md" &
done

wait

🔵 Claude (Sonnet) — independent design critique. You MUST also write your own adversarial critique. Do NOT just summarize what external providers said. Approach the design direction as if you didn't create it — actively look for problems across all five dimensions. This is your independent synthesis perspective, same as in /octo:debate.

Display all critiques with provider indicators:

🔴/🧭/🟡 **External Provider Critique:** [implementation, ecosystem, accessibility, and alternative approach concerns]
🔵 **Claude Critique:** [design concerns — accessibility gaps, fit issues, missing patterns]

If only 1-2 providers are available, run with what you have. Even Claude-only critique (minimum case) is valuable because you're explicitly switching from "designer who made the choices" to "reviewer finding problems."

After collecting all critiques, synthesize and revise:

1. Triage issues — group by severity (must-fix, should-fix, acknowledged trade-off)
2. Fix must-fix items — adjust colors for contrast, swap impractical fonts, add missing patterns
3. Address should-fix items — incorporate where feasible, note rationale for deferrals
4. Log trade-offs — document what you're keeping despite critique and why
5. Show the diff — present what changed between original and revised direction:

📋 **Design Direction Revisions:**
- [Changed] Primary blue #2563EB → #1D4ED8 (contrast ratio 4.2:1 → 5.8:1, per external critique)
- [Added] Fallback font stack for body text (per external critique)
- [Kept] Glassmorphism style despite provider concern — appropriate for SaaS dashboard audience

The revised design direction feeds into Phase 3. Do NOT proceed with an uncritiqued direction.

STEP 6: Phase 3 — Develop (Design System)

Generate the design system based on user's requested deliverables:

Design Tokens (if requested):

• CSS custom properties or Tailwind config
• Color scales (50-950)
• Spacing scale (4px base)
• Typography scale with line heights
• Shadow, border-radius, and transition tokens

Component Specs (if requested):

• Component anatomy diagrams (ASCII)
• Props/variants table
• State variants (default, hover, active, disabled, error, loading)
• Accessibility requirements (ARIA, keyboard, focus)

Page Layouts (if requested):

• Grid-based layout with responsive breakpoints
• Content hierarchy and visual flow
• Above-the-fold content strategy
• Navigation and interaction patterns

Style Guide (if requested):

• Visual style rationale with evidence from search results
• Do's and don'ts with examples
• Icon and illustration guidelines
• Motion and animation principles

If shadcn MCP is available, search for matching components:

// Search shadcn registries for components matching the design system
mcp__shadcn__search_items_in_registries({ query: "<component name>" })

STEP 7: Phase 4 — Deliver (Validation)

1. Accessibility audit — run the checker, do not eyeball. Every text/background pair in the token set goes through the contrast validator:

python3 "${HOME}/.claude-octopus/plugin/scripts/helpers/contrast-check.py" \
  '<text-hex>:<bg-hex>' '<heading-hex>:<bg-hex>:large' '<muted-hex>:<bg-hex>' ...

Exit 1 means at least one pair fails WCAG AA — fix the palette and re-run before delivering. Include the checker output in the final document as evidence.

1. Slop check — run the pre-ship checklist in skills/blocks/design-taste.md; two or more misses means revise before delivering
2. Completeness check — verify all requested deliverables are present
3. Implementation readiness — confirm specs are detailed enough for frontend-developer
4. Figma push-back (if connected) — offer to push design tokens to Figma

STEP 7b: AI Surface Audit (when the interface calls a model)

Run this whenever the thing being designed sends input to a model and shows the result, and especially when it then acts on that result. Style guides and component specs do not answer what an AI feature must show and let the user control; this step does. Skip it entirely for interfaces with no model in the loop.

Ask each question and record an explicit answer. "Not applicable" is a valid answer; silence is not.

1. Uncertainty. Does the surface distinguish a confident answer from a guess? If it cannot, say so plainly rather than implying uniform reliability. Do not invent a numeric threshold — pick a representation the underlying system can actually justify.

2. Provenance. Can the user see what the answer was derived from? Retrieval and search features need citations; a summariser needs the source it summarised. An answer with no traceable origin is unreviewable.

3. Interruption. If output streams or the task is long-running, is there a cancel affordance, and does cancelling actually stop the work rather than just hiding it? A stop button that abandons a still-running job is worse than none, because it misreports the system's state.

4. The review gate. Where does a human check the output, and is that placement load-bearing? A gate after an irreversible action is decoration. skill-intent-contract already elicits initiative, control, and decision rights separately — reuse those answers here rather than re-deriving them, and if they disagree with the placement, the contract wins.

5. Failure and degradation. What does the surface show when the model is slow, unavailable, rate-limited, or returns something unusable? Each needs a distinct state. Collapsing them into one generic error teaches users to ignore it.

6. Consent and data use. Does the user know what is sent, where, and whether it is retained? Required wherever input may contain someone else's data.

7. Rollback. If the feature takes a real-world action — files, sends, pays, deletes — what undoes it, and is that path visible before the action, not only after it fails?

Output contract. Answer all seven in the delivered document, each with the decision and its rationale. Where a question is unanswerable because the underlying system cannot support it, record that as a finding rather than leaving the row blank: an unanswerable question about rollback is a design constraint, not an omission.

Attribution. The framing follows the AI Interaction Atlas by Brandon Harwood (ai-interaction.com). Depend on it, do not copy it: the Atlas deliberately ships no thresholds — no confidence cutoffs, no latency budgets — and inventing them here would attribute numbers to a source that does not publish them. State direction, cite the source, and let the product supply its own values.

STEP 8: Present Results and Persist

Format the final design system as a structured document with:

• Executive summary (style direction + rationale)
• Design tokens (copy-paste ready)
• Component inventory
• Page layouts
• Implementation notes for the development team
• Sources (which search results informed each decision)

Persist the design system so it survives the session (contract: skill-design-lineage):

SLUG=$(basename "$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel 2>/dev/null || pwd)")
RAW_BRANCH=$(git branch --show-current 2>/dev/null || true)
REVISION=$(git rev-parse HEAD 2>/dev/null || printf 'unborn')
if [[ -n "$RAW_BRANCH" ]]; then
  BRANCH_KEY=$(printf '%s' "$RAW_BRANCH" | tr '/' '-')
else
  RAW_BRANCH="detached:${REVISION}"
  BRANCH_KEY="detached-${REVISION}"
fi
DATETIME=$(date -u +"%Y%m%d-%H%M%S")
DESIGNS_DIR="${HOME}/.claude-octopus/designs/${SLUG}"
mkdir -p "$DESIGNS_DIR"

# DESIGN_BODY must contain the complete structured design system from this step.
if [[ -z "${DESIGN_BODY:-}" ]]; then
  echo "Design persistence failed: DESIGN_BODY is empty." >&2
  exit 1
fi

# Serialize revision allocation per branch with an OS-managed lock. Closing the
# descriptor releases the lock even after SIGKILL or a process/host crash.
LOCK_DIGEST=""
if command -v sha256sum >/dev/null 2>&1; then
  LOCK_DIGEST=$(printf '%s' "$RAW_BRANCH" | sha256sum | awk '{print $1}') || LOCK_DIGEST=""
elif command -v shasum >/dev/null 2>&1; then
  LOCK_DIGEST=$(printf '%s' "$RAW_BRANCH" | shasum -a 256 | awk '{print $1}') || LOCK_DIGEST=""
else
  echo "Design persistence failed: no supported SHA-256 utility." >&2
  exit 1
fi
if [[ ! "$LOCK_DIGEST" =~ ^[[:xdigit:]]{64}$ ]]; then
  echo "Design persistence failed: could not derive the branch lock key." >&2
  exit 1
fi
LOCK_FILE="${DESIGNS_DIR}/.${LOCK_DIGEST}.lineage.lock"
LOCK_HELD=false
FILEPATH=""
TEMP_PATH=""
cleanup_design_persistence() {
  [[ -n "${TEMP_PATH:-}" && -f "$TEMP_PATH" ]] && rm -f "$TEMP_PATH"
  [[ -n "${FILEPATH:-}" && -f "$FILEPATH" && ! -s "$FILEPATH" ]] && rm -f "$FILEPATH"
  if [[ "$LOCK_HELD" == true ]]; then
    exec 9>&-
    LOCK_HELD=false
  fi
}
trap cleanup_design_persistence EXIT
trap 'cleanup_design_persistence; exit 1' HUP INT TERM

if ! exec 9>"$LOCK_FILE"; then
  echo "Design persistence failed: could not open the lineage lock." >&2
  exit 1
fi
if command -v flock >/dev/null 2>&1; then
  if flock -n 9; then LOCK_STATUS=0; else LOCK_STATUS=$?; fi
elif command -v lockf >/dev/null 2>&1; then
  if lockf -s -t 0 9; then LOCK_STATUS=0; else LOCK_STATUS=$?; fi
else
  exec 9>&-
  echo "Design persistence failed: no supported file-lock utility (flock or lockf)." >&2
  exit 1
fi
if [[ "$LOCK_STATUS" -ne 0 ]]; then
  exec 9>&-
  echo "Design persistence failed: another revision is being persisted for $RAW_BRANCH." >&2
  exit 1
fi
LOCK_HELD=true

# Discover the newest prior document for this exact branch or detached revision.
PRIOR=""
for candidate in "$DESIGNS_DIR"/*.md; do
  [[ -f "$candidate" ]] || continue
  candidate_branch=$(awk -F ': ' '$1 == "branch" { print $2; exit }' "$candidate")
  [[ "$candidate_branch" == "$RAW_BRANCH" ]] || continue
  [[ -z "$PRIOR" || "$candidate" -nt "$PRIOR" ]] && PRIOR="$candidate"
done
SUPERSEDES=""
[[ -n "$PRIOR" ]] && SUPERSEDES=$(basename "$PRIOR")

USER_NAME="${USER:-$(whoami)}"
REVISION_ID="${DATETIME}-$$-${RANDOM}"
FILEPATH="${DESIGNS_DIR}/${USER_NAME}-${BRANCH_KEY}-design-${REVISION_ID}.md"

# Reserve the final name atomically. The timestamp is readable; PID + RANDOM
# prevents same-second runs from choosing the same immutable revision.
if [[ -e "$FILEPATH" ]] || ! (set -o noclobber; : > "$FILEPATH") 2>/dev/null; then
  echo "Design persistence failed: revision target already exists: $FILEPATH" >&2
  exit 1
fi

if [[ -n "$SUPERSEDES" && "$SUPERSEDES" == "$(basename "$FILEPATH")" ]]; then
  rm -f "$FILEPATH"
  echo "Design persistence failed: a revision must not supersede itself." >&2
  exit 1
fi

if ! TEMP_PATH=$(mktemp "${FILEPATH}.tmp.XXXXXX"); then
  echo "Design persistence failed: could not allocate a temporary file." >&2
  exit 1
fi

if ! {
  printf '%s\n' '---'
  printf 'branch: %s\n' "$RAW_BRANCH"
  printf 'user: %s\n' "$USER_NAME"
  printf 'created: %s\n' "$(date -u +"%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ")"
  printf 'git_revision: %s\n' "$REVISION"
  [[ -n "$SUPERSEDES" ]] && printf 'supersedes: %s\n' "$SUPERSEDES"
  printf '%s\n\n' '---'
  printf '%s\n' "$DESIGN_BODY"
} > "$TEMP_PATH"; then
  echo "Design persistence failed: could not write complete temporary document." >&2
  exit 1
fi

if [[ ! -s "$TEMP_PATH" ]]; then
  echo "Design persistence failed: temporary document is missing or empty." >&2
  exit 1
fi

PUBLISHED_PATH="$FILEPATH"
if ! mv "$TEMP_PATH" "$FILEPATH"; then
  echo "Design persistence failed: could not publish $FILEPATH." >&2
  exit 1
fi
TEMP_PATH=""
FILEPATH=""
exec 9>&-
LOCK_HELD=false
trap - EXIT HUP INT TERM
printf 'Persisted design: %s\n' "$PUBLISHED_PATH"

Later sessions (and flow-develop / frontend-developer handoffs) MUST filter ~/.claude-octopus/designs/<slug>/ to documents whose branch: matches the current Git branch before selecting the newest revision. Under detached HEAD, use the detached:<full-commit> branch value and only select documents for that exact revision. Follow supersedes only within the filtered set. A revision supersedes rather than edits the prior document.

Offer next steps:

• "Want me to implement these specs?" → hand off to frontend-developer persona
• "Want to refine the palette?" → re-run color search with adjusted query
• "Want a full embrace workflow?" → transition to /octo:embrace