Open design

SkillDocs & knowledge

Once added, your coding agent can open and preview design project files from Open Design, a local-first design app. Your agent can also draw on the app's 139 skills and 150 design systems while helping with design work.

Use Open design in Claude, ChatGPT or Ahel Desktop

Free. Sign in, add Open design and connect your AI. About a minute.

Also: Claude Code · Cursor · Codex

Then ask your AI: use the Open design skill

Details

Instructions available. Your AI can read the instructions. Execution depends on the setup they require.

After adding the pack, install the od daemon and make sure it is available on your PATH so your agent can reach the design app. Then open a design project and ask your agent to work with its files.

Open designStart free

What your AI can do with it

  • Open design project files from the local app
  • Preview design files
  • Work with projects, files, and previews through your agent
  • Apply the 139 built-in skills to design tasks
  • Follow the 150 included design systems when making changes

What this skill tells your AI

The instructions your AI receives, as published by compozy/compozy in extensions/open-design/skills/open-design/SKILL.md and read by Ahel’s review.

Create the smallest complete artifact that answers the request. A short brief and a _uiux.md are equally valid inputs. Use the user's language unless the requested content specifies another. Ask only when an unresolved decision prevents useful work; otherwise state a reasonable assumption and proceed.

Bind the design to its project

Read the supplied context and the relevant existing UI, components, tokens, assets, and approved references. Current project authority governs visual choices; do not impose CompozyOS styling on another product or let a generic aesthetic rule replace the approved system. If no direction exists, choose one coherent approach suited to the audience and content.

For _uiux.md, preserve requested surfaces, states, artifact paths, component mappings, and relevant behavior from linked spec/story sections. Respect superseded entries and group related states where useful. Treat illustrative references as visual guidance, not permission to invent features. Keep unresolved product decisions visibly provisional.

Load only the reference sections needed for this artifact, relative to this skill's directory:

  • craft.md: hierarchy, composition, content, and color for a new direction; semantics, focus, and states for interactive work; language and motion when affected.
  • artifacts.md: the matching lane for an interface, site, HTML slide deck, or visual document, including its relevant delivery checks.

Use compozy__skill_view with name: open-design and file: references/craft.md or references/artifacts.md when available. If the native skill reader is unavailable or denies access, report the reference as unavailable; do not bypass the managed-session reader. Reuse already-read guidance while it remains relevant.

Author a directly openable artifact

Write docs/design/<slug>/index.html in the active workspace by default. Explicit requested paths under docs/design/ take precedence. Keep supporting assets there with ordinary relative links, or inline them. The output must open from a local file without a build, service, custom viewer, installed-extension paths, or remote runtime dependencies.

Use complete, brief-derived content and accurate assets. Label illustrative data; never invent sources, endorsements, metrics, or backend guarantees. A named real person, product, brand, artwork, or place needs its correct asset, not a fabricated look-alike. Reuse approved local assets first; disclose a necessary labeled placeholder when the correct asset is unavailable. Preserve image proportions and required attribution.

Give meaningful regions and controls stable data-od-id values for precise feedback. Implement local demonstrations of the requested interactions without calling product mutation APIs. Keep prototype or presenter controls out of the artifact unless needed by its format or requested by the user.

Refine the same files in place, preserving approved decisions and unrelated content. Do not create a version system, extra registry, or mandatory companion document. This workflow creates design artifacts; it does not edit production application code or publish them.

Verify and deliver

Read back the changed HTML, check local assets and content completeness, and exercise the primary interaction when tooling permits. Invoke ext__open_design__lint_artifact with the actual workspace-relative HTML paths. Inspect its findings, fix applicable defects, and explain an intentional exception with the specific user or project authority. Report unavailable lint tooling as unverified.

When rendered inspection would resolve a visual or interaction risk, use the bundled open-design-browser skill with an isolated task-owned CLI session. Do not substitute browser-use, attach to an existing browser, or operate the user's live browsing session. Load the resulting screenshot through the harness's image-reading capability before claiming visual inspection; an accessibility snapshot or screenshot path is not visual proof. Keep checks proportional to the change. Missing browser support need not block an HTML sketch, and does not justify an automatic installation.

Link the actual HTML files and briefly describe the result, checks performed, and material limitations. Do not repeat their source in chat. Recheck affected areas after corrections and reuse valid evidence for unchanged areas.

Explicit independent review

Load open-design-review only when the user requests the independent review and refinement cycle. Routine creation, edits, or _uiux.md input alone stay in the designer conversation. When acting inside that loop, follow its supplied schema without starting another run.

Signals

GitHub stars
3k
Forks
182
Last commit
Oct 2026

What people say

Users disagree sharply: one Reddit user calls it a free, legit local alternative to Claude Design, while another calls it the worst slop-software they've tried, reporting that attached files and screenshots aren't actually accessible to the model. A third user reports agent integration issues, saying Hermes can't orient well in the harness or access files.

Praised for
free local open-source alternative to Claude Design
works with multiple AI CLIs/agents
local-first with premade design systems
Complaints
model can't actually access attached files/screenshots despi
can't attach folders; repo link copies wrong design language
agent (Hermes) has trouble accessing files and lacks harness

Summarized from 8 public posts. Opinions are theirs, not Ahel's.

Advanced
Item type
skill
Key
open-design
Source
github.com/compozy/compozy