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frontend-design skill

/skills/frontend-design

This skill helps you craft production-grade frontend interfaces with a bold aesthetic, delivering distinctive components, pages, and apps.

This is most likely a fork of the frontend-design skill from openclaw
npx playbooks add skill am-will/codex-skills --skill frontend-design

Review the files below or copy the command above to add this skill to your agents.

Files (1)
SKILL.md
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---
name: frontend-design
description: Create distinctive, production-grade frontend interfaces with high design quality. Use this skill when the user asks to build web components, pages, or applications. Generates creative, polished code that avoids generic AI aesthetics.
license: Complete terms in LICENSE.txt
---

This skill guides creation of distinctive, production-grade frontend interfaces that avoid generic "AI slop" aesthetics. Implement real working code with exceptional attention to aesthetic details and creative choices.

The user provides frontend requirements: a component, page, application, or interface to build. They may include context about the purpose, audience, or technical constraints.

## Design Thinking

Before coding, understand the context and commit to a BOLD aesthetic direction:
- **Purpose**: What problem does this interface solve? Who uses it?
- **Tone**: Pick an extreme: brutally minimal, maximalist chaos, retro-futuristic, organic/natural, luxury/refined, playful/toy-like, editorial/magazine, brutalist/raw, art deco/geometric, soft/pastel, industrial/utilitarian, etc. There are so many flavors to choose from. Use these for inspiration but design one that is true to the aesthetic direction.
- **Constraints**: Technical requirements (framework, performance, accessibility).
- **Differentiation**: What makes this UNFORGETTABLE? What's the one thing someone will remember?

**CRITICAL**: Choose a clear conceptual direction and execute it with precision. Bold maximalism and refined minimalism both work - the key is intentionality, not intensity.

Then implement working code (HTML/CSS/JS, React, Vue, etc.) that is:
- Production-grade and functional
- Visually striking and memorable
- Cohesive with a clear aesthetic point-of-view
- Meticulously refined in every detail

## Frontend Aesthetics Guidelines

Focus on:
- **Typography**: Choose fonts that are beautiful, unique, and interesting. Avoid generic fonts like Arial and Inter; opt instead for distinctive choices that elevate the frontend's aesthetics; unexpected, characterful font choices. Pair a distinctive display font with a refined body font.
- **Color & Theme**: Commit to a cohesive aesthetic. Use CSS variables for consistency. Dominant colors with sharp accents outperform timid, evenly-distributed palettes.
- **Motion**: Use animations for effects and micro-interactions. Prioritize CSS-only solutions for HTML. Use Motion library for React when available. Focus on high-impact moments: one well-orchestrated page load with staggered reveals (animation-delay) creates more delight than scattered micro-interactions. Use scroll-triggering and hover states that surprise.
- **Spatial Composition**: Unexpected layouts. Asymmetry. Overlap. Diagonal flow. Grid-breaking elements. Generous negative space OR controlled density.
- **Backgrounds & Visual Details**: Create atmosphere and depth rather than defaulting to solid colors. Add contextual effects and textures that match the overall aesthetic. Apply creative forms like gradient meshes, noise textures, geometric patterns, layered transparencies, dramatic shadows, decorative borders, custom cursors, and grain overlays.

NEVER use generic AI-generated aesthetics like overused font families (Inter, Roboto, Arial, system fonts), cliched color schemes (particularly purple gradients on white backgrounds), predictable layouts and component patterns, and cookie-cutter design that lacks context-specific character.

Interpret creatively and make unexpected choices that feel genuinely designed for the context. No design should be the same. Vary between light and dark themes, different fonts, different aesthetics. NEVER converge on common choices (Space Grotesk, for example) across generations.

**IMPORTANT**: Match implementation complexity to the aesthetic vision. Maximalist designs need elaborate code with extensive animations and effects. Minimalist or refined designs need restraint, precision, and careful attention to spacing, typography, and subtle details. Elegance comes from executing the vision well.

Remember: Codex is capable of extraordinary creative work. Don't hold back, show what can truly be created when thinking outside the box and committing fully to a distinctive vision.

Overview

This skill crafts distinctive, production-grade frontend interfaces with intentional, non-generic aesthetics. It accepts component, page, or application requirements and returns working, polished code and a clear design direction focused on memorable visual character and high craft.

How this skill works

I start by clarifying purpose, audience, constraints, and a single bold aesthetic direction. Then I produce implementation-ready HTML/CSS/JS or framework code with refined typography, color system, motion, spatial composition, and contextual textures. Every output includes CSS variables, accessible patterns, and a short design rationale to ensure the result is cohesive and production-appropriate.

When to use it

  • You need a unique, high-design UI component or page that avoids generic AI aesthetics.
  • Building a theme or landing page that must stand out visually and be production-ready.
  • Prototyping a visually daring interface with working code for handoff to engineers.
  • You want an aesthetic-first implementation: typography, motion, and nuanced details.
  • Converting product requirements into a clear visual system and implemented example.

Best practices

  • Define the purpose and a single, extreme aesthetic tone before coding.
  • Commit to distinctive font choices and provide fallbacks; use CSS variables for colors.
  • Favor one well-orchestrated animation sequence over many scattered effects.
  • Match implementation complexity to the aesthetic vision (restraint for minimalism, elaborate code for maximalism).
  • Prioritize accessibility: contrast, keyboard focus states, and semantic markup for all components.

Example use cases

  • Design and implement a retro-futuristic product landing with animated hero and layered gradients.
  • Create a brutalist dashboard component set with asymmetric layout and bold typographic hierarchy.
  • Build a soft/pastel marketing page with handcrafted textures, subtle motion, and unique type pairing.
  • Produce a modular React component library that showcases a luxury/refined UI system with production-ready CSS.
  • Convert design constraints (audience, performance, framework) into a finished page and a short implementation guide.

FAQ

Will you deliver production-ready code I can drop into a project?

Yes. Outputs include working HTML/CSS/JS or framework components, CSS variables, and integration notes for common build setups.

How do you choose fonts and colors?

I select characterful display fonts paired with refined body fonts and create a deliberate color system with dominant hues and sharp accents, always providing fallbacks and variable tokens.