| name | frontend-design |
| description | Use when a design deliverable must be produced as a durable HTML artifact — prototypes, slide decks, animations, wireframes, or UI mockups — and the work must follow a file-first, adversarially reviewed, harness-compatible workflow. |
Frontend Design
Use this router when the hard problem is producing a high-quality design artifact — an HTML prototype, slide deck, animation, or wireframe — with explicit scope, a design-context checkpoint, adversarial quality review, and durable learning capture.
Do not perform child phase work here. Dispatch one fresh worker per phase. Merge returned artifacts, then decide the next dispatch. If delegation is warranted for evidence gathering, prefer fresh workers; if the sprint state already makes the route clear, keep the dispatch direct.
Each child lives under frontend-design/<child-name>/, and child SKILL.md files should say they are nested design-family workers.
Core Contract
- Route to exactly one child, or say no family child fits.
- Files beat chat memory. If the sprint workspace and the conversation disagree, the workspace wins.
- One runnable design sprint at a time. Do not open a second sprint while one is active.
- Design spec must exist before any artifact is built. If
design.md is absent or its phase is design_needed, route to design-context-scout first.
- Human approval gates proposals before execution.
design.md with phase: "awaiting_human" means the builder must not start until the human clears it.
- The builder does not self-approve. Only
design-reviewer may issue a verdict.
- The reviewer is adversarial. A beautiful artifact is not evidence of a correct one.
- Retry after FAIL requires a named
clean_restore_ref in status.json.
- Attempt budgets are finite. When
attempt_count >= max_attempts, park at escalated_to_human.
- Compound pending work drains before a new sprint is opened.
Decision Order
- Check whether this family applies: the work is to produce or revise a durable design artifact (HTML prototype, deck, animation, wireframe, UI mockup).
- Read
.agents-stack/tracked-work.json to determine whether any runnable design sprint is active, parked, or queued for compounding.
- If
compound_pending_feature_ids is non-empty, route design-compounder before opening or resuming any sprint.
- If a runnable active sprint exists, route from the strongest local artifact in
.agents-stack/<sprint-id>/.
- Phase routing from strongest local artifact — in order:
design-qa.md exists and is unreconciled → route to orchestrator (harness) before next stepdesign-handoff.md with READY_FOR_REVIEW and no design-qa.md → design-reviewerdesign.md with phase: "design_contracted" → design-builder (prototype validation is now an optional pre-build step within builder)design.md exists and phase: "approved" (human-approved, contract not yet finalized) → design-proposer to formalize the contractdesign.md exists and phase: "awaiting_human" → surface to human; do not auto-dispatchdesign.md exists with no_design_system_found: true and phase: "awaiting_human" → surface to human; do not advance to proposer until human provides design referencedesign.md exists with phase: "design_spec" (scout completed, no proposal yet) → design-proposer.agents-stack/<sprint-id>/ folder exists with only status.json and no design.md → design-context-scout
- If no runnable sprint and no active harness folder exists:
- First read
.agents-stack/tracked-work.json for a pending design feature; if found, route design-context-scout to begin scouting for it.
- If no tracked feature exists yet, a
project-initializer pass may be needed first.
qa_fail with valid clean_restore_ref and remaining budget → design-builder retry.qa_blocked → route to orchestrator (harness) to record the blocker, then surface to human. Do not auto-retry a BLOCKED verdict.build_error or qa_fail without clean_restore_ref, or budget exhausted → orchestrator → escalated_to_human.design-qa.md PASS → route to orchestrator (harness) to reconcile verdict and queue compound.- After
orchestrator confirms compound_pending_feature_ids is non-empty → route to design-compounder.
- After
design-compounder clears the queue → sprint is complete; open next sprint if pending.
Phase Model
| Phase | Artifact | Owner |
|---|
design_needed | nothing yet | design-context-scout |
design_spec | design.md | design-proposer |
awaiting_human | design.md | human |
design_contracted | design.md | design-builder |
building | in-progress HTML, design-handoff.md | design-builder |
awaiting_review | design-handoff.md | design-reviewer |
qa_pass | design-qa.md PASS | orchestrator → design-compounder |
qa_fail | design-qa.md FAIL | design-builder retry |
qa_blocked | design-qa.md BLOCKED | orchestrator → human |
build_error | design-handoff.md with failure | orchestrator |
escalated_to_human | status.json | human |
Family Workflow Boundary
This router owns:
- design context scouting
- design sprint proposal and contract
- HTML artifact implementation
- adversarial design quality review
- design learning compound capture
This router does not own general harness lifecycle management. After design-qa.md is written, route through orchestrator (from using-agents-stack) for archive, live-state reconciliation, and progress ledger updates. This family's state machine is a domain layer on top of the harness, not a replacement for it.
Router Output
Return one of these forms, then dispatch the selected child as a fresh worker:
Route to frontend-design/design-context-scout.Route to frontend-design/design-proposer.Parked at awaiting_human. Surface design.md to human for approval.Route to frontend-design/design-builder.Route to frontend-design/design-reviewer.Route to frontend-design/design-compounder.Route to using-agents-stack (root orchestrator). (after review verdict or build failure)Escalated to human. No family child fits without human action.No family child fits. (if the work is not a design artifact task)
References
Final Checklist
