| name | ui-intel |
| description | Design intelligence — the concrete picks, not just the taste. Queries a local database of product types, color palettes, UI styles, font pairings and UX rules, and returns an actual design system: real hex tokens, a named style, a font pairing, decision rules and the anti-patterns to avoid. Triggers at the START of any UI work — a new page, app, landing page, redesign, component library — and on "what colors / font / style should this use", "make it look designed, not generic", or "it looks AI-generated". Persists the result to .mc/design/MASTER.md so every later session builds the same product. |
| allowed-tools | Read, Grep, Glob, Bash, Write, Edit |
ui-intel — design intelligence, with the specifics
Taste alone produces "use a restrained accent and a modular scale" — true, and useless at 2am. This skill
answers with #2563EB, Geist + Inter, "don't put glass behind a data table". It reads a curated
local database and returns a design system you can paste.
When to apply
Any task that changes how something looks, feels, moves, or is interacted with — a new page or app, a
redesign, a component library, or a "why does this look generic" complaint. Run it before writing UI, not
after. Skip it for backend logic, APIs, infra, and non-visual work.
Step 1 — detect the stack. Never assume it.
Read the repo: package.json (react · next · vue · nuxt · svelte · astro · @angular), pubspec.yaml (Flutter),
*.xcodeproj / Package.swift (SwiftUI), composer.json (Laravel), app.json + react-native.
If nothing is detectable, ask. A hardcoded default silently misroutes every recommendation that follows.
Step 2 — get the design system
node <skill-dir>/uikit.mjs --design-system "<product type> <industry> <keywords>" [--stack next] [-p "Name"]
Returns: layout pattern · style · a full palette (light + dark, shadcn-shaped) · font pairing · signature
effects · decision rules · anti-patterns · a pre-delivery checklist.
node uikit.mjs --design-system "beauty spa wellness booking" -p "Serenity"
Narrower questions:
node uikit.mjs --domain palettes "fintech trust"
node uikit.mjs --list styles
node uikit.mjs --contrast "#64748B" "#F1F5F9"
Step 3 — persist it, so session #2 builds the same product
node uikit.mjs --design-system "<query>" --persist --out <project-root> -p "Name" [--page dashboard]
Writes .mc/design/MASTER.md (the source of truth) and .mc/design/pages/<page>.md (overrides that win over
MASTER for that page only).
Read MASTER.md before regenerating it. An existing file is left untouched unless you pass --force —
that file may hold decisions a human made deliberately, and silently overwriting them is the one unforgivable
move here. When a page genuinely needs to deviate, write a page override; don't fork MASTER.
Later sessions: read .mc/design/MASTER.md → read pages/<page>.md if it exists → build. No re-litigating
the palette every time.
The priority ladder — what to fix first
Work top-down; a beautiful inaccessible button is a broken button.
| # | Category | Impact | Must have | Anti-pattern |
|---|
| 1 | Accessibility | critical | 4.5:1 text, alt text, keyboard reachable, visible focus, labels | outline: none, icon-only buttons with no name |
| 2 | Touch & interaction | critical | 44×44 targets, 8px gaps, feedback <100ms | hover-only menus, 0ms state changes |
| 3 | Performance | high | WebP/AVIF, lazy below the fold, reserved space (CLS <0.1) | layout jumping when data lands |
| 4 | Style coherence | high | one system, SVG icons | emoji as icons, three styles at once |
| 5 | Layout & responsive | high | mobile-first, no horizontal scroll | fixed px containers, user-scalable=no |
| 6 | Typography & colour | medium | 16px base, 1.5 line-height, semantic tokens | 12px body, grey-on-grey, raw hex in components |
| 7 | Motion | medium | 150–300ms, meaningful, prefers-reduced-motion | decorative-only, animating width/height |
| 8 | Forms & feedback | medium | visible labels, errors at the field | placeholder-as-label, errors only at the top |
| 9 | Navigation | high | predictable back, ≤5 bottom items, deep links | overloaded nav, broken back |
| 10 | Charts & data | low | legends, tooltips, accessible series | colour as the only channel |
Full rule text: node uikit.mjs --domain ux-rules "<topic>".
Contrast is verified here, not claimed
Every palette is checked by uikit.mjs --check, which computes real WCAG 2.2 ratios over all eleven token
pairs in both light and dark mode and exits non-zero on a violation. A palette that ships is a palette that
passed. Use --contrast on your own colors before defending them.
The pair list is the product — a pair nobody checks is a pair nobody verified. input went unchecked for
months, and every one of the 40 palettes shipped a form field outlined at ~1.6:1 against WCAG 1.4.11's 3:1. It
passed review because it looked fine to people who can see it. Two lessons worth keeping:
border and input answer to different rules. A decorative divider has no WCAG minimum; a border that
tells someone where the field is needs 3:1 (1.4.11). Merging them hides the second behind the first.- When you add a pair, expect the database to fail. That is the check working.
Feeds fe-design-system (tokens), fe-page-patterns (layout), fe-component-craft (build) and
fe-design-review (the ladder above, as a review). Inspired by the excellent
ui-ux-pro-max (MIT) — the idea of a queryable design
database is theirs; this data is our own. See docs/ECOSYSTEM.md.
