wireframe

name	wireframe
description	Produce low-fidelity black-and-white UI wireframes as standalone SVG files. Use when asked to wireframe a screen, page, or flow, make a low-fi mockup or layout draft, bundle wireframes into a browsable viewer page, or publish wireframes for review.

Wireframe

Produce low-fidelity, black-and-white UI wireframes as standalone SVG files. The goal is to communicate structure — what goes where, in what order, at roughly what size — without committing to colour, brand, or polish.

House style — non-negotiable

Wireframes are diagnostic, not decorative. Lock these tokens on every output:

Token	Value	Notes
Stroke	#000 width 1.5	All borders, dividers, outlines
Fill (boxes)	#fff	Default for cards/containers
Placeholder fill	#e6e6e6	Image/avatar/empty-state regions
Text colour	#000 for labels, #666 for placeholder text	No other colours
Accent	#d33 (dashed) — annotation layer ONLY	Never inside real UI elements
Font	font-family="-apple-system, system-ui, sans-serif"	Single typeface across the whole file
Type scale	12 caption · 14 body · 20 heading · 28 title	No other sizes
Grid	8px snap, 24px gutter	All x/y/w/h must be multiples of 8
Default canvas	1280×800 desktop, 375×812 mobile, 768×1024 tablet	Pick one and state it in the comment

If you need to highlight a specific region for a callout, use the annotation layer (red dashed). Never colourise the wireframe itself.

Workflow

1. Confirm scope. What screen(s)? Which viewport (desktop / tablet / mobile)? Single screen or multi-screen flow? If unclear, ask one question, then proceed with the most likely default.
2. Pick a canvas from the table above. State the viewport in your reply.
3. Compose from primitives. Read references/components.md and assemble the screen from the primitive snippets. Snap every coordinate to 8px.
4. Write the SVG to a file. Default path: wireframes/<slug>.svg in the working directory. Filename slug describes the screen (login.svg, dashboard.svg, settings-account.svg).
5. Emit a textual annotation list in your reply, mapping each numbered region in the SVG to a one-line description ("1 — primary nav, 2 — search input, 3 — list of recent items"). This makes the wireframe accessible, queryable, and reviewable in text-only channels.
6. For multi-screen flows, produce one SVG per screen and a summary flow.svg that arranges thumbnails left-to-right with arrows between them.

Quick start — minimal SVG

<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="1280" height="800" viewBox="0 0 1280 800"
     font-family="-apple-system, system-ui, sans-serif" fill="#fff" stroke="#000" stroke-width="1.5">
  <!-- canvas border -->
  <rect x="0" y="0" width="1280" height="800" />

  <!-- example: a button -->
  <g transform="translate(48, 48)">
    <rect width="120" height="40" rx="4" />
    <text x="60" y="25" font-size="14" text-anchor="middle" stroke="none" fill="#000">Continue</text>
  </g>
</svg>

Two house-style gotchas worth memorising:

• Always set stroke="none" on <text> elements (text inherits the parent stroke and gets a halo otherwise).
• Always wrap text fill explicitly (fill="#000") since the parent group fill is #fff for boxes.

Primitive library

The full set of reusable primitives lives in references/components.md. Load it whenever you need a primitive whose exact markup you do not have in working memory. Do not re-derive primitives from scratch — copy the snippet and adjust coordinates.

Primitives provided:

• Inputs: button (filled, outlined, icon), text input, textarea, dropdown, checkbox, radio, toggle, search input
• Layout: card, section divider, sidebar, two-column, three-column
• Navigation: navbar, tab bar, breadcrumb, pagination, sidebar nav
• Content: heading, paragraph block, list row, table, key-value pair, metric tile
• Media: image placeholder, avatar (circle/square), video placeholder
• Overlay: modal, drawer, toast, tooltip, dropdown menu (open state)
• Annotation: numbered callout, dashed region highlight, arrow connector

Grid, palette, and type scale

For exact pixel values, palette tokens, and type sizes, see references/grid-system.md.

Worked examples

references/examples.md contains four complete wireframes you can copy and adapt:

1. Login screen (mobile, 375×812)
2. Admin dashboard (desktop, 1280×800)
3. Settings page with form (desktop, 1280×800)
4. Modal confirmation overlay (desktop, 1280×800)

When the user's request is close to one of these, start from the example and modify, rather than building from blank.

Output convention

Every wireframe response should include:

1. The SVG file written to disk (path stated explicitly).
2. The SVG inlined in your reply (so it renders in markdown previews).
3. A short numbered annotation list mapping regions to intent.
4. Any explicit assumption you made (viewport, signed-in state, empty/populated, dark/light not applicable since monochrome).

Viewer page and publishing

When the user asks to bundle the wireframes into a browsable page ("make a page that shows the screens", "let me click through them", "show them all on one page") or to deploy/publish/host them, read references/viewer.md and start from assets/site-template.html.

What this skill is NOT for

Skip this skill when the request mentions brand, polish, real components, "production-ready", colour palettes, hi-fi, Figma export, or actual code/HTML/React deliverables. Specifically:

• Production UI code — hand off to a hi-fi frontend/design skill if one is installed, or write the HTML/React directly.
• Hi-fi or branded mockups — use Figma or a design tool, not this.
• Interactive prototypes — SVG is static; export multi-screen flows as a flow.svg.
• Diagrams of system architecture, sequence flows, or data models — use mermaid or plantuml.
• Illustrations or art — use an illustration/canvas skill or tool, not wireframe primitives.

Bundled assets

• assets/template.svg — blank desktop canvas with hidden 8px-grid guides; copy as a starting point.
• assets/template-mobile.svg — same for 375×812 mobile.
• assets/site-template.html — minimal review-viewer page (sticky TOC + responsive collapse + lightbox). Copy to design/<task-slug>/index.html and fill in the sections when the user requests a viewer page.