▓▓ DESIGN ENGINE ▓▓

[ vague idea :: adaptive interview :: design direction :: reusable prompt ]

INTAKE → DECIDE → DIRECTION → PROMPT → BUILD NOTES

An Agent Skill that turns "I need a ___ but don't know how it should look" into a concrete interface direction. It asks only for what's missing — never a fixed questionnaire — and hands back a prompt you can reuse in any generation or implementation tool.

▸ install

npx skills add jonaskahn/design-engine       # this project
npx skills add jonaskahn/design-engine -g -y # every project

Claude Code native marketplace:

/plugin marketplace add jonaskahn/design-engine
/plugin install design-engine@design-engine

Either path installs skills/design-engine — or drop that folder into any skills directory by hand, no build step, no dependencies.

▸ usage

No command, no flags. Just describe what you're building.

Help me design a landing page for a privacy-focused calendar app. Freelancers, main action is starting a trial, should feel calm not techy.

What happens next:

1. keeps every fact already in your request
2. asks only the missing, consequential decisions — grouped, 3-6 per turn
3. routes to ONE experience type below, plus at most one variant
4. hands back: Selected UI Direction · Final Prompt · Build Notes

▸ experience types — auto-routed, pick one

type	for
personal	portfolios, resumes, personal sites
marketing	landing pages, product sites, conversion pages
application-ui	dashboards, admin panels, internal tools
ecommerce	storefronts, marketplaces, real estate, job boards, directories
content-docs	blogs, docs, knowledge bases, changelogs
mobile-app	native / hybrid app screens
ai-chat	chat, assistant, agent interfaces
email-template	campaign, newsletter, transactional email

redesign isn't a type of its own — say "redesign my ___" and it overlays onto whichever type above matches the surface.

▸ variants — layered on a type, at most one

• event-page, nonprofit-donation, booking → on marketing
• saas-onboarding → on application-ui or marketing
• community-social → on application-ui

▸ always asked vs. only when it matters

• theme (light / dark / both) — every intake
• accessibility target, localization / RTL — only when the request signals it (regulated, enterprise, EU, multi-language, non-Latin script); otherwise a stated default is assumed, no extra questions

▸ what it won't do

• invent copy, prices, testimonials, metrics, or brand assets — missing ones stay labeled placeholders
• send secrets, private URLs, or customer data into an external prompt without you saying so
• ship production code — output is a direction and a prompt, not a build

▸ layout

design-engine/
├── .claude-plugin/          plugin + marketplace manifests
└── skills/design-engine/
    ├── SKILL.md             entrypoint: workflow + routing
    └── references/          loaded on demand, one type at a time
        ├── shared-intake.md
        ├── output-contract.md
        ├── <experience-type>.md  × 8
        ├── redesign.md
        └── variants/         × 5