frontend-design

name	frontend-design
description	Use when a design deliverable must be produced as a durable HTML artifact — prototypes, slide decks, animations, wireframes, or UI mockups — and the work must follow a file-first, adversarially reviewed, harness-compatible workflow.

Frontend Design

Use this router when the hard problem is producing a high-quality design artifact — an HTML prototype, slide deck, animation, or wireframe — with explicit scope, a design-context checkpoint, adversarial quality review, and durable learning capture.

Do not perform child phase work here. Dispatch one fresh worker per phase. Merge returned artifacts, then decide the next dispatch. If delegation is warranted for evidence gathering, prefer fresh workers; if the sprint state already makes the route clear, keep the dispatch direct. Each child lives under frontend-design/<child-name>/, and child SKILL.md files should say they are nested design-family workers.

Core Contract

• Route to exactly one child, or say no family child fits.
• Files beat chat memory. If the sprint workspace and the conversation disagree, the workspace wins.
• One runnable design sprint at a time. Do not open a second sprint while one is active.
• Design spec must exist before any artifact is built. If design.md is absent or its phase is design_needed, route to design-context-scout first.
• Human approval gates proposals before execution. design.md with phase: "awaiting_human" means the builder must not start until the human clears it.
• The builder does not self-approve. Only design-reviewer may issue a verdict.
• The reviewer is adversarial. A beautiful artifact is not evidence of a correct one.
• Retry after FAIL requires a named clean_restore_ref in status.json.
• Attempt budgets are finite. When attempt_count >= max_attempts, park at escalated_to_human.
• Compound pending work drains before a new sprint is opened.

Decision Order

1. Check whether this family applies: the work is to produce or revise a durable design artifact (HTML prototype, deck, animation, wireframe, UI mockup).
2. Read .agents-stack/tracked-work.json to determine whether any runnable design sprint is active, parked, or queued for compounding.
3. If compound_pending_feature_ids is non-empty, route design-compounder before opening or resuming any sprint.
4. If a runnable active sprint exists, route from the strongest local artifact in .agents-stack/<sprint-id>/.
5. Phase routing from strongest local artifact — in order:
   • design-qa.md exists and is unreconciled → route to orchestrator (harness) before next step
   • design-handoff.md with READY_FOR_REVIEW and no design-qa.md → design-reviewer
   • design.md with phase: "design_contracted" → design-builder (prototype validation is now an optional pre-build step within builder)
   • design.md exists and phase: "approved" (human-approved, contract not yet finalized) → design-proposer to formalize the contract
   • design.md exists and phase: "awaiting_human" → surface to human; do not auto-dispatch
   • design.md exists with no_design_system_found: true and phase: "awaiting_human" → surface to human; do not advance to proposer until human provides design reference
   • design.md exists with phase: "design_spec" (scout completed, no proposal yet) → design-proposer
   • .agents-stack/<sprint-id>/ folder exists with only status.json and no design.md → design-context-scout
6. If no runnable sprint and no active harness folder exists:
   • First read .agents-stack/tracked-work.json for a pending design feature; if found, route design-context-scout to begin scouting for it.
   • If no tracked feature exists yet, a project-initializer pass may be needed first.
7. qa_fail with valid clean_restore_ref and remaining budget → design-builder retry.
8. qa_blocked → route to orchestrator (harness) to record the blocker, then surface to human. Do not auto-retry a BLOCKED verdict.
9. build_error or qa_fail without clean_restore_ref, or budget exhausted → orchestrator → escalated_to_human.
10. design-qa.md PASS → route to orchestrator (harness) to reconcile verdict and queue compound.
11. After orchestrator confirms compound_pending_feature_ids is non-empty → route to design-compounder.
12. After design-compounder clears the queue → sprint is complete; open next sprint if pending.

Phase Model

Phase	Artifact	Owner
design_needed	nothing yet	design-context-scout
design_spec	design.md	design-proposer
awaiting_human	design.md	human
design_contracted	design.md	design-builder
building	in-progress HTML, design-handoff.md	design-builder
awaiting_review	design-handoff.md	design-reviewer
qa_pass	design-qa.md PASS	orchestrator → design-compounder
qa_fail	design-qa.md FAIL	design-builder retry
qa_blocked	design-qa.md BLOCKED	orchestrator → human
build_error	design-handoff.md with failure	orchestrator
escalated_to_human	status.json	human

Family Workflow Boundary

This router owns:

• design context scouting
• design sprint proposal and contract
• HTML artifact implementation
• adversarial design quality review
• design learning compound capture

This router does not own general harness lifecycle management. After design-qa.md is written, route through orchestrator (from using-agents-stack) for archive, live-state reconciliation, and progress ledger updates. This family's state machine is a domain layer on top of the harness, not a replacement for it.

Router Output

Return one of these forms, then dispatch the selected child as a fresh worker:

• Route to frontend-design/design-context-scout.
• Route to frontend-design/design-proposer.
• Parked at awaiting_human. Surface design.md to human for approval.
• Route to frontend-design/design-builder.
• Route to frontend-design/design-reviewer.
• Route to frontend-design/design-compounder.
• Route to using-agents-stack (root orchestrator). (after review verdict or build failure)
• Escalated to human. No family child fits without human action.
• No family child fits. (if the work is not a design artifact task)

References

• design-quality-contract-recipe

Final Checklist

• Only one routing target selected per session
• compound_pending_feature_ids checked before opening a new sprint
• design.md verified present before routing to design-proposer
• awaiting_human phase not auto-dispatched — surfaced to human
• orchestrator invoked after every review verdict (PASS, FAIL, or BLOCKED)
• qa_blocked routes to orchestrator + human, not to builder retry
• qa_pass sequence: orchestrator → confirm compound queued → design-compounder
• Children inventory in references/children.json is current