| name | design-brief |
| description | Brief Claude Design for GetStronger — decide whether a canvas is the right tool at all, then write a constrained brief carrying the app's real tokens so the mock maps onto real components. Use when asked to mock up, redesign, explore alternatives for, or refine a screen, or when reaching for the design skill. |
Briefing a design
Claude Design's cost is almost all output tokens spent generating artboard
HTML, plus re-sending that HTML on every later turn. Both are avoidable, and
the first question is whether to open a canvas at all.
Is a canvas the right tool?
| The change is | Do this instead |
|---|
| Spacing, hierarchy, colour, copy on a screen that exists | Screenshot → edit → re-screenshot |
| One screen you already know the shape of | Build it; photograph the result |
| Several directions you don't want to build yet | Canvas |
| A screen with no component to photograph | Canvas |
Refining what already exists does not need a mock — the app can be
photographed. Follow .claude/skills/design-review/SKILL.md: photograph the ref
you want as the before with mise run screenshots, change the component, then
mise run screenshots:diff to see what moved. Page names are the name:
fields in web/tests/screenshots/catalogue.ts — home, workout,
view-routine, quick-workout and the rest. That loop costs a fraction of a
canvas session and ends in shipped code rather than a mock still to be ported.
A canvas earns its cost when the point is choosing between directions.
Writing the brief
Name five things. Each one omitted is a paragraph of output paid for and a
round trip spent correcting it.
- Which screens, and how many. Two or three, named. "Design the workout
flow" returns eight artboards and cost is linear in artboards.
- Dimensions — 390×844, the viewport
web/playwright.screenshots.config.ts
photographs at, so a mock and a screenshot are comparable.
- The tokens, pasted from below. Left to invent, it emits a bespoke
palette and long CSS blocks: more output, and a mock that maps onto nothing.
- Fidelity. Greybox the alternatives, refine only the survivor. Fidelity
is the multiplier, and refining three directions to discard two is the
classic waste.
- The constraint that made this worth designing — the thing that is wrong
today, in one sentence.
The tokens
From web/src/assets/theme.css, which is the source of truth. Paste this into
the brief rather than pointing at the file.
Type: system-ui. display 30/1.15/-.025em · title 22/1.25/-.02em ·
body-lg 17/1.5 · body 15/1.5 · meta 13/1.4 · eyebrow 12/1.3/+.1em
Nothing below 12px, ever.
Ink: #25282d · strong #1f2226 · muted #565b61 · tint #e8e9e7 ·
surface #f5f5f2 · border #d4d5d3
Bg: surface #ffffff · sunken #f5f5f3 · inverse #25282d · track #e8e9e7
border #e3e5e0 · strong #cbd5e1
Text: #16181b · muted #5b6167 · subtle #656b71
State: success #047857 on #ecfdf5 · warning #b45309 on #fffbeb ·
danger #dc2626 (text #b91c1c) on #fef2f2 · info #334155 on #f1f5f9
Record: #ad7b1f (text #8b5f18) on #fbf4e6, border #e8d0a2 — personal records only
Controls: 48 default · 44 floor, never below · 56 submit
Radius: control 12 · card 16 · sheet 24 · pill full
Shadow: card 0 1px 2px rgb(2 6 23/.06) · raised 0 4px 12px/.08 ·
overlay 0 16px 40px/.16
Three rules travel with them: no colour outside this list, gold is for personal
records and nothing else, and destructive is danger text, never a red fill.
Compose from the catalogue in web/src/ui/components/README.md — AppButton,
AppCard, AppList, AppSheet, AppSegmented and the rest — and name the
components in the brief. A mock built from real components is a mock that ports
in an afternoon.
Keeping the session cheap
- Generate the canvas in a subagent that returns only the artifact URL. The
artboard HTML never enters the main context, so it is not re-sent every turn
after. This is the difference between quadratic and constant context cost, and
it matters more than everything else here.
- Tweak in the canvas editor, not through Claude. Click-to-select, the
properties panel, inline text editing and undo/redo are free. Come back for
structural changes — a new section, a different layout — not to shrink a
heading. Asking for "a bit more padding" pays model rates for a drag handle.
- Start a session for the design. A canvas opened in a context already full
of code carries all of it forward.
- Once a direction is chosen, port it against the real components and photograph
the result. The canvas is the argument, not the artefact.
