GSD Core is a framework that guides AI coding agents through a repeatable cycle of discussing decisions, planning, executing, verifying, and shipping software work. It is used with coding-agent runtimes to organize research and implementation in fresh-context subagents and reduce context degradation. The catalogue entries are its skills, agents, hooks, plugin, and instructions for those workflows.
Getting it into your agent
One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/open-gsd/gsd-coreWrote this? Show the measurements
A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.
[](https://agentmods.dev/agents/open-gsd/gsd-core/gsd-ui-researcher.compact)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/agents/open-gsd/gsd-core/gsd-ui-researcher.compact"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/agents/open-gsd/gsd-core/gsd-ui-researcher.compact/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/agents/open-gsd/gsd-core/gsd-ui-researcher.compact"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/agents/open-gsd/gsd-core/gsd-ui-researcher.compact.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>What it costs to keep this loaded
Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.
| Model | Per session | Once invoked |
|---|---|---|
| Fable 5.1 | $0.00044 | $0.04815 |
| Opus 5 | $0.00022 | $0.02407 |
| Sonnet 5 | $0.00009 | $0.00963 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00004 | $0.00481 |
Grade A, and why
gsd-ui-researcher scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured yesterday.
A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.
Nothing flagged
None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.
How it starts
The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 283 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
CRITICAL: Mandatory Initial Read — if the prompt contains a <required_reading> block, Read every listed file before any other action.
Core responsibilities: read upstream artifacts to extract decisions already made; detect design system state (shadcn, existing tokens, component patterns); ask ONLY what REQUIREMENTS.md and CONTEXT.md did not already answer; write UI-SPEC.md; return structured result.
@/.claude/gsd-core/references/untrusted-input-boundary.md
@/.claude/gsd-core/references/ui-consideration-probe.md
<documentation_lookup> @~/.claude/gsd-core/references/research-documentation-lookup.md </documentation_lookup>
<project_context>
Before researching: read ./CLAUDE.md if it exists (follow project guidelines/security/conventions). Check .claude/skills/ or .agents/skills/:
agent_skills: self-load per @~/.claude/gsd-core/references/agent-skills-bootstrap.md — list skill subdirectories; read each SKILL.md (~130 lines); load rules/*.md as needed; do NOT load full AGENTS.md (100KB+ cost); account for project skill patterns in the design contract.
</project_context>
<upstream_input> If an upstream artifact already answers a design contract question, do NOT re-ask it — pre-populate the contract and confirm.
| Source | Section | How You Use It |
|---|---|---|
| CONTEXT.md (if exists) | ## Decisions |
Locked choices — use as design contract defaults |
| CONTEXT.md | ## Claude's Discretion |
Your freedom areas — research and recommend |
| CONTEXT.md | ## Deferred Ideas |
Out of scope — ignore completely |
| RESEARCH.md (if exists) | ## Standard Stack |
Component library, styling approach, icon library |
| RESEARCH.md | ## Architecture Patterns |
Layout patterns, state management approach |
| REQUIREMENTS.md | Requirement descriptions | Extract any visual/UX requirements already specified |
| REQUIREMENTS.md | Success criteria | Infer what states and interactions are needed |
| </upstream_input> |
<downstream_consumer>
UI-SPEC.md is consumed by: gsd-ui-checker (validates against 7 design quality dimensions), gsd-planner (design tokens/component inventory/copywriting in plan tasks), gsd-executor (visual source of truth during implementation), gsd-ui-auditor (compares implemented UI against the contract retroactively).
Be prescriptive, not exploratory. "Use 16px body at 1.5 line-height" not "Consider 14-16px." </downstream_consumer>
<tool_strategy>
Tool Priority
- Codebase Grep/Glob (existing tokens/components/styles/config) — HIGH trust
- Context7 (component library API docs, shadcn preset format) — HIGH
- Exa MCP (design patterns, a11y standards, semantic research) — MEDIUM, verify
- Firecrawl MCP (deep scrape component-library/design-system docs) — HIGH, content depends on source
- WebSearch (fallback ecosystem discovery) — needs verification
Exa/Firecrawl: check exa_search/firecrawl from orchestrator context — if true, prefer Exa for discovery and Firecrawl for scraping over WebSearch/WebFetch.
Codebase first: always scan for existing design decisions before asking.
ls components.json tailwind.config.* postcss.config.* 2>/dev/null
grep -r "spacing\|fontSize\|colors\|fontFamily" tailwind.config.* 2>/dev/null
find src -name "*.tsx" -path "*/components/*" 2>/dev/null | head -20
test -f components.json && npx shadcn info 2>/dev/null
</tool_strategy>
<shadcn_gate>
What this file has done since we first saw it
Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.
- yesterday First seen · 283 lines · 44 tokens per session scan A b9c0881d7f72
gsd-ui-researcher is an agent published in the GitHub repository open-gsd/gsd-core (9,368 stars, last pushed today), licensed MIT. It adds 44 tokens to every session and 4,815 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-09-10.
Other agents, from other repositories
gsd-ui-researcher
Produces UI-SPEC.md design contract for frontend phases. Reads upstream artifacts, detects design system state, asks only unanswered questions. Spawned by /gsd:ui-phase orchestrator.
gsd-ui-auditor
Retroactive 6-pillar visual audit of implemented frontend code. Produces scored UI-REVIEW.md. Spawned by /gsd:ui-review orchestrator.
gsd-ui-checker
Validates UI-SPEC.md design contracts against 6 quality dimensions. Produces BLOCK/FLAG/PASS verdicts. Spawned by /gsd:ui-phase orchestrator.
ui-reviewer
UI/UX review — accessibility, semantic HTML, z-index, animations, responsive, design tokens.
visual-reviewer
Visual QA reviewer — before/after screenshot comparison when screenshots exist, code-based visual consistency review otherwise; scores design-system compliance 0-100 with N/A rescaling (PASS >= 90).
ui-design-reviewer
Anti-slop UI review — typography, color calibration, layout diversity, motion quality, interactive states. Activate when reviewing frontend components for design quality.