ui-craft

Use for UI design and implementation work to avoid generic AI-looking interfaces. Provides anti-slop rules, a required discovery phase before coding, and guidance for layout, typography, color, motion, accessibility, dashboards, tables, landing pages, theming, and polish. Trigger when editing UI code or reviewing and refining components, pages, screens, layouts, animations, responsive behavior, or design systems.

"Amplify personality — raises layout variance and motion, strengthens typography and one signature detail, without slop. Use when the UI works but feels safe, flat, or "template-y", or when the user says "bolder", "more personality", "more creative", or "make it pop" (still professional). Invoke when the user asks for bolder on their UI, or mentions 'bolder' alongside design / UI / frontend work."

Write or update the project's durable design brief at .ui-craft/brief.md. Invoke when the user asks for brief on their UI, or mentions 'brief' alongside design / UI / frontend work.

"One-shot build pipeline for a complete surface from an outcome recipe — inputs (or defaults) → composition → theme → build order → acceptance bar. Use when the user asks for a whole surface ("build me a dashboard", "hazme un dashboard") and expects a shippable result, not component-level help. Invoke when the user asks for craft on their UI, or mentions 'craft' alongside design / UI / frontend work."

Pre-ship gate — runs detector, verifies brief and tokens, applies the 10-pass finish bar, ranks findings by feedback hierarchy. Use when the user wants to ship, merge, or finalize a surface and needs a verdict (READY / NOT READY / BLOCKED) before committing. Invoke when the user asks for finalize on their UI, or mentions 'finalize' alongside design / UI / frontend work.

"Final craft pass applying the compound details from the polish checklist — micro-typography, spacing rhythm, hover states, and a signature detail — directly to code. Use when the surface is functionally complete but feels unfinished, or when the user says "polish this" / "it looks generic" / "add the final touches". Invoke when the user asks for polish on their UI, or mentions 'polish' alongside design / UI / frontend work."

"Tone down visual noise — lowers variance and motion, simplifies layout and color weight, keeps hierarchy clear. Use when the UI feels loud, busy, or over-designed, or when the user says "quieter", "more restrained", "simpler", or "tone it down". Invoke when the user asks for quieter on their UI, or mentions 'quieter' alongside design / UI / frontend work."

"Redesign an existing site or app without losing what already works — audits the current surface first, classifies what to preserve (brand, IA, SEO, content), picks a refresh/reskin/rebuild scope, then modernizes deliberately. Use when the user says "redesign", "modernize this site", "refresh the UI", "make this look current", or points at an existing page/URL they want improved rather than rebuilt from scratch. Invoke when the user asks for redesign on their UI, or mentions 'redesign' alongside design / UI / frontend work."

Full spec-driven pipeline — walks brief → tokens → shape (spec) → craft (build) → converge → ship in one guided run. Writes `.ui-craft/spec.md`. Run when starting a net-new surface from scratch. Invoke when the user asks for sddesign on their UI, or mentions 'sddesign' alongside design / UI / frontend work.

Front door. Reads the current project (framework, tokens, brief, spec, harness) and reports what ui-craft can do right now, then routes you to the right next step. Run this first if you're new or unsure where to begin. No code changes. Invoke when the user asks for start on their UI, or mentions 'start' alongside design / UI / frontend work.

"Typography pass covering font choice, modular scale, tracking, leading, weight hierarchy, and micro-typography details. Use when fonts feel generic (default Inter with no reason), the scale is ad hoc, hierarchy is flat, or the user says "fix the typography" / "the text doesn't feel right". Invoke when the user asks for typeset on their UI, or mentions 'typeset' alongside design / UI / frontend work."

"Responsive layout pass covering breakpoints, touch targets, safe areas, and fluid type. Use when the UI has layout or touch issues on mobile/tablet, when adding a new screen that hasn't been tested across viewports, or when the user says "make it responsive" / "fix mobile layout". Invoke when the user asks for adapt on their UI, or mentions 'adapt' alongside design / UI / frontend work."

"Motion design pass — adds purposeful animations or removes excessive ones, respecting MOTION_INTENSITY and the project's animation stack. Use when the user asks to add animation, "make it feel smoother", fix janky transitions, or trim motion that's distracting. Invoke when the user asks for animate on their UI, or mentions 'animate' alongside design / UI / frontend work."

Technical UI audit — a11y, performance, responsive. Produces a prioritized findings table. Invoke when the user asks for audit on their UI, or mentions 'audit' alongside design / UI / frontend work.

"UX copy review across buttons, errors, empty states, and form hints — critiques by default, applies only on request. Use when copy feels vague, generic, or AI-sounding, or when the user says "fix the labels", "improve error messages", or "review the copy". Invoke when the user asks for clarify on their UI, or mentions 'clarify' alongside design / UI / frontend work."

Color strategy pass — introduces a single accent at 3-5 intentional placements, or reduces an over-colored UI back to 90% neutral. Use when the UI has no color identity, uses blue by default, or is shouting with too many competing accents. Invoke when the user asks for colorize on their UI, or mentions 'colorize' alongside design / UI / frontend work.

"Design lens critique covering visual hierarchy, clarity, and anti-slop patterns — produces a findings table, no code edits unless asked. Use when the user wants a design review, says "what's wrong with this UI", or needs a second opinion before a handoff or presentation. Invoke when the user asks for critique on their UI, or mentions 'critique' alongside design / UI / frontend work."

"Delight pass — adds one or two memorable micro-interactions (copy specificity, hover choreography, state transitions, one signature detail) without decoration or confetti. Use when the UI works but feels generic, or when the user says "make it feel special" / "add some personality". Invoke when the user asks for delight on their UI, or mentions 'delight' alongside design / UI / frontend work."

"Reduction pass — cuts content, structure, visuals, and dead code that doesn't answer a user question or drive an action, respecting CRAFT_LEVEL. Use when the UI feels cluttered, has too many CTAs, walls of text, or decorative noise, or when the user says "simplify this" / "it feels too busy". Invoke when the user asks for distill on their UI, or mentions 'distill' alongside design / UI / frontend work."

"Refactoring pass — extracts repeated Tailwind class combos and markup into components, and lifts magic values into design tokens. Use when the codebase has obvious duplication, hardcoded hex values or pixel sizes, or when the user says "clean this up" / "extract components" / "tokenize styles". Invoke when the user asks for extract on their UI, or mentions 'extract' alongside design / UI / frontend work."

"Production-readiness pass — audits and implements the full non-happy-path matrix: loading skeletons, empty states, error messages, partial data, i18n, offline, permissions, and first-run guidance. Use when preparing a surface for production or when the user says "it crashes on empty data" / "there's no loading state" / "harden this". Invoke when the user asks for harden on their UI, or mentions 'harden' alongside design / UI / frontend work."

Produce a scored heuristic critique of the UI using Nielsen's 10 + 6 design laws + optional persona walkthroughs. Outputs a machine-parseable scorecard plus a 0-100 UsabilityScore (the judged companion to the deterministic UICraftScore). Invoke when the user asks for heuristic on their UI, or mentions 'heuristic' alongside design / UI / frontend work.

Record a learned design constraint from a correction into the project brief. Invoke when the user asks for remember on their UI, or mentions 'remember' alongside design / UI / frontend work.

Wireframe-first pass — outputs an ASCII layout + state list + content inventory + question list before any code. Use when starting a new screen from scratch or when the user's brief is still ambiguous. Invoke when the user asks for shape on their UI, or mentions 'shape' alongside design / UI / frontend work.

Audit or establish the project's 3-layer token spine. Invoke when the user asks for tokens on their UI, or mentions 'tokens' alongside design / UI / frontend work.

Dense dashboard / admin / Bloomberg / Retool / data-heavy internal tools. Locked knobs: CRAFT=7, MOTION=3, DENSITY=9. IBM Plex + mono numbers, semantic palette, 4/8px grid, sparklines, tabular-nums. Trigger on: dashboard, admin panel, data-dense, analytics, Bloomberg-like, Retool-like.

Editorial / magazine / long-form / Medium / Substack / content-heavy UIs. Locked knobs: CRAFT=9, MOTION=4, DENSITY=3. Serif display + humanist body, wide reading column, drop caps, OpenType. Trigger on: editorial, magazine, long-form, blog, Medium-like, Substack-like.

Minimal / clean / Linear / Notion / Vercel / whitespace-heavy UIs. Locked knobs: CRAFT=8, MOTION=3, DENSITY=2. Monochrome + one accent, Inter/Geist, hairline borders over shadows. Trigger on: minimal, clean, Linear-like, Notion-like, Vercel-like, whitespace-heavy.

"State-first design pass — inventories and implements all non-happy states (loading, empty, error, partial, conflict, offline) before the happy path, and refactors impossible boolean state to proper state machines. Use when starting a new screen, reviewing an existing one for edge-case gaps, or when the user says "handle the error state" / "add loading states" / "what happens when data is missing". Invoke when the user asks for unhappy on their UI, or mentions 'unhappy' alongside design / UI / frontend work."

Dense dashboard / admin / Bloomberg / Retool / data-heavy internal tools. Locked knobs: CRAFT=7, MOTION=3, DENSITY=9. IBM Plex + mono numbers, semantic palette, 4/8px grid, sparklines, tabular-nums. Trigger on: dashboard, admin panel, data-dense, analytics, Bloomberg-like, Retool-like.

Editorial / magazine / long-form / Medium / Substack / content-heavy UIs. Locked knobs: CRAFT=9, MOTION=4, DENSITY=3. Serif display + humanist body, wide reading column, drop caps, OpenType. Trigger on: editorial, magazine, long-form, blog, Medium-like, Substack-like.

Minimal / clean / Linear / Notion / Vercel / whitespace-heavy UIs. Locked knobs: CRAFT=8, MOTION=3, DENSITY=2. Monochrome + one accent, Inter/Geist, hairline borders over shadows. Trigger on: minimal, clean, Linear-like, Notion-like, Vercel-like, whitespace-heavy.