design

A set of project-specific rules for designing user interfaces. It defines which shared color tokens, typography sizes, spacing, and component patterns to use.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when creating or editing interface screens and components, especially when choosing colors, text sizes, borders, and other visual styles.
Why use it?
It keeps screens visually consistent and avoids one-off colors or styles that conflict with the project's design system.

Cursor rule for Cursor

Install

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.

agentmods
npx agentmods add rules/bmoff/code-first-design/design
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/bmoff/code-first-design

Made for: Cursor.

Per session 0 Nothing until a file matches its globs; then the whole rule loads.
When invoked 758 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

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.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00000 $0.00758
Opus 5 $0.00000 $0.00379
Sonnet 5 $0.00000 $0.00152
Haiku 4.5 $0.00000 $0.00076

Measured yesterday against content hash 64f5a734a03a, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

design 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.

.cursor/rules/design.mdc · 89 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 89 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Design Principles

Color Palette

Use the design tokens defined in app/globals.css. The actual color values are defined there as CSS variables.

Available tokens (reference app/globals.css for exact values):

  • Primary: bg-primary, text-primary-foreground, hover:bg-primary/90
  • Secondary: bg-secondary, text-secondary-foreground
  • Accent: bg-accent, text-accent-foreground, hover:bg-accent
  • Destructive: bg-destructive, text-destructive-foreground
  • Background: bg-background, text-foreground
  • Card: bg-card, text-card-foreground
  • Muted: bg-muted, text-muted-foreground
  • Border: border-border, border-border/30 (with opacity)

Always use these semantic tokens rather than hardcoded colours. For opacity variations, use /30, /50, /90 etc.

Typography

Use Tailwind's typography scale. Check your project's font configuration in app/layout.tsx or app/globals.css for custom fonts.

Typography scale:

  • Headings: text-4xl, text-3xl, text-2xl, text-xl, text-lg
  • Body: text-base (default)
  • Small: text-sm, text-xs
  • Weights: font-normal, font-medium, font-semibold, font-bold
  • Line height: Defaults are appropriate, use leading-tight, leading-relaxed if needed

For code/data: Use font-mono with appropriate sizing.

Spacing & Layout

Define spacing scale, grid system, and layout patterns.

Example:

  • Base unit: 4px (0.25rem)
  • Use Tailwind spacing scale: gap-4, p-6, mb-8
  • Grid: Use CSS Grid or Flexbox for responsive layouts
  • Container: max-w-5xl mx-auto for content width

Component Patterns

Document common component patterns, glassmorphism effects, animations, etc.

Example:

// Card pattern
<div className="p-6 rounded-xl border border-border/30 bg-card">
  {/* Content */}
</div>

// Button with hover
<Button className="hover:bg-primary/90 transition-colors">
  Click me
</Button>

Accessibility

Specify WCAG compliance level, contrast ratios, and keyboard navigation patterns.

Read the full file on GitHub · 89 lines

Changes

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.

  1. yesterday First seen · 89 lines · 0 tokens per session scan A 64f5a734a03a

Subscribe to this mod's changes

design is a cursor rule published in the GitHub repository bmoff/code-first-design (4 stars, last pushed 9mo ago), licensed MIT. It costs nothing until one of its globs matches a file; then it loads 758 tokens. 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 2026-08-31.