| name | design-auto-orchestrator |
| description | UI/UX frontend website portfolio router. Mandatory first-use design orchestrator for Codex. Use before frontend-design, hallmark, ui-ux-pro-max, ui-design-brain, web-design-guidelines, better-icons, Open Design, or other specialized design skills whenever a request or intermediate work step touches UI, UX, frontend visuals, product interfaces, websites, landing pages, portfolios, dashboards, admin panels, app screens, components, forms, tables, navigation, design systems, typography, color, layout, motion, icons, accessibility, responsive behavior, screenshot critique, visual polish, anti-AI-slop, Open Design, or design-resource selection. Do not require the user to name this skill, downstream skills, Open Design, or any tool. Route work to the right local design skills and tools based on task semantics, project files, screenshots, and implementation context. |
Design Auto Orchestrator
This is a background judgment layer for design-adjacent work. Treat vague user language, project files, screenshots, and intermediate implementation discoveries as useful product/design signal. Infer the real job, then route to the smallest useful combination of local design skills and tools.
Core Rule
Do not wait for the user to name a skill, a downstream tool, or an invocation method. If the request or any work step touches interface design, frontend visuals, UX quality, design systems, icons, screenshots, accessibility, layout, motion, or Open Design, classify the task and proceed in the background.
Do not present this skill as a user-facing command. The user should be able to describe normal work, and the agent should decide when this routing layer applies.
Priority Rule
When this skill and a more specific design skill both appear relevant, use this skill first. The router decides whether to load the specific skill.
Do not skip this router because frontend-design, hallmark, ui-ux-pro-max, ui-design-brain, web-design-guidelines, better-icons, or open-design also matches the user request.
Automatic Background Use
Apply this skill at task start or mid-task when design signals appear. Examples of mid-task signals:
- A repo scan reveals React/Vue/Svelte/Next app UI files, component libraries, Tailwind, shadcn, CSS variables, or design tokens.
- A coding task changes visible UI, layout, typography, colors, spacing, icons, interactive states, motion, or responsive behavior.
- A screenshot, image, Figma/Open Design artifact, product page, dashboard, app screen, or portfolio appears in the context.
- A verification pass finds visual regressions, clipped text, poor contrast, broken mobile layout, generic AI-looking styling, or inconsistent iconography.
When this happens, enter this routing flow for the relevant substep, load only the needed downstream skill files, act, validate, and then return to the main task.
Load only the selected downstream skill files. Do not blindly read every design skill.
Automatic Intake
Before choosing tools, classify:
- Surface: marketing page, portfolio, SaaS app, dashboard, admin, form, table, component, mobile screen, deck/artifact, screenshot review, design-system work.
- Task mode: create, redesign, polish, audit, critique, implement, extract, choose style, select icons, generate Open Design artifact.
- Risk level: light, medium, heavy.
- Inputs present: repo code, screenshots/images,
DESIGN.md, PRODUCT.md, Tailwind/shadcn/design tokens, brand assets, Open Design project.
Prefer acting over asking. Ask one concise question only when two routes would produce materially different outputs.
Routing
Use references/routing.md for the full routing table when the task is not obvious.
Fast defaults:
- Need a design system or style recommendation: run
ui-ux-pro-max first.
- SaaS/admin/dashboard/forms/tables/components: use
ui-design-brain.
- Landing page, portfolio, expressive web page, visual redesign: use
ui-ux-pro-max first when the brief is vague or assets are sparse, then frontend-design, then hallmark or design-taste-frontend for anti-slop polish.
- Resume/PDF/text-only personal website with weak visual assets: do not jump straight to HTML. Run a visual strategy pass first (
ui-ux-pro-max or a concrete reference source), then implement, then critique screenshots with hallmark and impeccable.
- "Too AI", "not premium", "ugly", "generic", "make it high-end": use
hallmark; add impeccable for deeper critique.
- Review/audit/accessibility/responsive quality: use
web-design-guidelines; add hallmark audit for visual slop.
- Icons: use
better-icons CLI.
- Local-first design generation/artifact/project workflow: verify Open Design daemon, then use
open-design MCP or od CLI.
- Specific visual style from the 67-style library: read only that slug under the local source cache
design-skill-sources\awesome-design-skills\skills\<slug>.
- Research/strategy/ops/handoff/design-process work: read only the relevant plugin under the local source cache
design-skill-sources\designer-skills.
Workflow Depth
Choose the lowest depth that will satisfy the request:
- Light: one skill/tool, no broad scan. Use for icons, small component polish, one review, quick style advice.
- Medium: project scan + design system + implementation/polish skill. Use for new pages, dashboards, redesigned screens.
- Heavy: project scan + design system + implementation + anti-slop pass + screenshot or guideline audit. Use for user-facing deliverables, homepage redesigns, production UI, or when the user asks for complete, production, deploy, ship, high-end, or audit.
Project Scan
For existing repos, inspect in parallel where useful:
package.json, framework config, src/, app/, pages/, components/- Tailwind/shadcn/Radix/Material/Fluent/Carbon/Ant/Bootstrap usage
DESIGN.md, PRODUCT.md, README.md- CSS variables, theme files, fonts, icon packages
- screenshots or attached images
Preserve existing design systems, routes, tokens, analytics-relevant names, and component boundaries unless the user explicitly asks for a rebuild.
Tool Commands
Use these deterministic helpers when needed. Resolve Codex home first:
$CodexHome = if ($env:CODEX_HOME) { $env:CODEX_HOME } else { Join-Path $HOME ".codex" }
python (Join-Path $CodexHome "skills\ui-ux-pro-max\scripts\search.py") "<brief>" --design-system -p "<Project>"
better-icons search <query> --limit 10 --json
better-icons get <icon-id>
Invoke-WebRequest -UseBasicParsing http://127.0.0.1:7456/api/health
codex -c 'service_tier="fast"' mcp get open-design
Run the bundled health check when the design toolchain itself may be broken:
$CodexHome = if ($env:CODEX_HOME) { $env:CODEX_HOME } else { Join-Path $HOME ".codex" }
powershell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File (Join-Path $CodexHome "skills\design-auto-orchestrator\scripts\health-check.ps1")
Done Criteria
For design build or redesign tasks, done means:
- The selected design route is clear from the work.
- Code or artifact is actually changed/created when requested.
- A visual direction was chosen before implementation for websites, portfolios, landing pages, and other user-facing surfaces.
- Obvious AI-design tropes are removed.
- Mobile/responsive text and controls fit.
- Icons are from a consistent source.
- Accessibility basics are checked for interactive UI.
- A smoke test, screenshot check, lint/build, or relevant health check ran when feasible.
- A taste pass happened after screenshots. Passing layout, contrast, and responsiveness checks is not enough; if the screenshot looks generic, sparse, awkward, or unimpressive for the target audience, iterate before final.
If a downstream tool is unavailable, name the missing piece and continue with the best local fallback.
