Design Skill for Claude

Design

Systematic, anti-slop product design. All agents inherit the session model. Reviewers bold-labeled; Workers plain.

This skill exercises Layer 4 (Brainstorming/Spec) and the design layer of Layer 0 (Project Analysis). It is

thinking, not building — no source code is written here. The only writes are to .hyperflow/design/system.md and

.hyperflow/specs/. It ends with a handoff gate into /hyperflow:plan → /hyperflow:dispatch for the build.

Iron Rules

• Design system first. Every run establishes or extends .hyperflow/design/system.md before designing a screen,

per ../hyperflow/design-system.md. The system is created once and extended, never

regenerated.

• Researched, not invented. Ground every direction in ≥2 real products from the project's field, combine

them, then diverge with one deliberate signature (the method in design-system.md).

• Local taste skills are invoked live. The main session calls Skill to invoke the matching taste skill; the

dispatched designer agent Reads the SKILL.md and applies it (it has no Skill tool).

• Per-step agents (DOCTRINE rule 12). No inline design — the designer specialist

does the work; an accessibility-reviewer pass gates the result.

• No code in the design phase. Design produces a system file and a design spec; dispatch executes them.
• Failure recovery (DOCTRINE rule 14) per ../hyperflow/failure-recovery.md.
• No AI attribution in any file written.

Per-Step Agent Map (DOCTRINE rule 12)

| Step | Sub-phase | Workers | Reviewers | Notes |

|---|---|---|---|---|

| 1 — Triage | — | — | — | Mechanical classification (exempt) per ../hyperflow/task-triage.md |

| 2 — Design system | 2a — establish/extend .hyperflow/design/system.md | designer | Reviewer | Creates if missing; extends if present |

| 3 — Research + direction | 3a — prior-art research + combine + diverge | designer (fan-out ≤ 3 by dimension) | Reviewer | Web-research-first; ≥2 references |

| 4 — Design spec | 4a — translate direction into tokens/spec | designer | Reviewer | Written to .hyperflow/specs/<slug>.md |

| 5 — Taste + a11y review | — | — | designer verdict + accessibility-reviewer | Anti-slop floor + WCAG floor |

| 6 — Handoff gate | — | — | — | AskUserQuestion only (exempt — structural gate) |

Approval Gates

| Gate | When | Format |

|---|---|---|

| Handoff gate | Step 6, after the spec is written | AskUserQuestion — build now / plan first / stop |

Flow

Step 1 — Triage

Classify the request per ../hyperflow/task-triage.md. types will include ui

and/or creative; the Brain confirms designer on the roster.

Step 2 — Design system

Read .hyperflow/design/system.md. If missing, dispatch designer — establish design system to create it (domain,

tokens, type scale, spacing, motion, voice, components, references, anti-patterns) per

design-system.md. If present, dispatch designer — extend design system to add

only what this brief needs. Then Reviewer — design-system coverage check.

Step 3 — Research + direction

Invoke the matching local taste skill(s) live via Skill (per the index in design-system.md). Then dispatch

designer — research prior art + propose direction (fan-out ≤ 3 by visual language / motion+interaction / IA when

the surface is broad): study ≥2 real systems in the field, combine, diverge with one named signature. Then

Reviewer — direction grounding check (≥2 references combined, not copied; signature is deliberate).

Step 4 — Design spec

Dispatch designer — author design spec to translate the chosen direction into the bound design-system tokens and

write it to .hyperflow/specs/<slug>.md (format per ../hyperflow/artefact-format.md).

Then Reviewer — spec sanity check.

Step 5 — Taste + accessibility review

Dispatch in parallel: designer — taste verdict (anti-slop floor) ∥ accessibility-reviewer — a11y floor

(WCAG AA, focus, reduced-motion, RTL). On a11y conflict, the floor wins (Step 5 defers to the a11y verdict).

Step 6 — Handoff gate (STRUCTURAL GATE · DOCTRINE rule 8)

?  Design spec ready at .hyperflow/specs/<slug>.md — build it?

   Build now (Recommended)  — chain to /hyperflow:plan → /hyperflow:dispatch
   Plan first               — open /hyperflow:plan to decompose without building yet
   Stop                     — leave the spec; build later

On Build now → invoke Skill with skill: plan and args: "session=one spec=.hyperflow/specs/<slug>.md". On

Plan first → invoke plan without auto-dispatch. On Stop → print one line and stop. If AskUserQuestion is

unavailable, print the gate as a Hyperflow Question block and wait — never auto-build silently.

Output Format

Two outputs:

• The design system at .hyperflow/design/system.md — living token document (created or extended this run).
• The design spec at .hyperflow/specs/<slug>.md — the direction, tokens, signature, and References: block.

Chat shows one status box pointing at the files, never the token dump (file-first, rule 8):

── Design Result ─────────────────────
Brief:    <one line>
System:   .hyperflow/design/system.md (created | extended)
Spec:     .hyperflow/specs/<slug>.md
Verdict:  taste PASS · a11y PASS
─────────────────────────────────────

Hand-off

• Plan it — auto-chain to /hyperflow:plan for decomposition; plan then stops at its build-location gate and asks where to build (it never auto-implements).
• Stop — spec persists for a later build.

Doctrine

Full rules in DOCTRINE.md. Design method, taste-skill index, and anti-slop floor in

design-system.md. Persona standards (ui, creative) in

personas-A.md — bound by the designer, never restated.

Overview

/hyperflow:design runs systematic product design: it establishes or extends the project's design system, researches

real-world prior art in the project's field, invokes the matching local taste skill, dispatches the designer

specialist to combine references and diverge with one deliberate signature, and gates the result on a taste +

accessibility review before handing off to the build chain.

Prerequisites

• .hyperflow/ cache recommended (Layer 0 analysis improves design context). Run /hyperflow:scaffold first if

missing.

• Local taste skills installed under ~/.claude/skills/ (the skill degrades gracefully to the anti-slop floor in

design-system.md when a specific taste skill is absent).