21st-ui-build

A workflow for building or substantially changing a web interface while following the current project's design rules and components. It can also use inspiration from 21st.dev, a web UI catalogue.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to implement pages, sections, components, responsive changes, and visual polish, including accessibility and loading, empty, and error states.
Why use it?
It helps keep new interface work consistent with the existing project instead of producing a disconnected design.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

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 skills/21st-dev/claude-code-plugin/21st-ui-build
Any agent
npx skills add 21st-dev/claude-code-plugin --skill 21st-ui-build
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/21st-dev/claude-code-plugin

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 111 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 536 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 $0.00111 $0.00536
Opus 5 $0.00056 $0.00268
Sonnet 5 $0.00022 $0.00107
Haiku 4.5 $0.00011 $0.00054

Measured 2d ago against content hash 746095b0c07e, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

21st-ui-build 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 2d ago.

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.

Origin

Copies of this mod

2 near-identical copies found in the catalogue:

plugins/21st/skills/21st-ui-build/SKILL.md · 54 lines

What it actually says

Build project-aware UI

Preserve the product's identity while using 21st supply to accelerate implementation.

Workflow

  1. Read .21st/design.json and .21st/DESIGN.md. If neither exists, run 21st init --design-context.

  2. Inspect the target route, its closest components, project instructions, and existing tokens. Treat explicit project facts as stronger than generic taste.

  3. Search before generating:

    21st search "<specific UI need>" --context auto
    
  4. Reuse installed project primitives first. Retrieve or install a 21st result only when it reduces duplication or materially improves the result.

  5. If no result fits, generate project-aware alternatives:

    21st generate "<goal and constraints>" --context auto --variants 3
    
  6. Implement the selected direction in the project's real framework. Do not paste sketch HTML when the project expects React components, tokens, or established APIs.

  7. Preserve responsive behavior, keyboard interaction, visible focus, semantics, reduced motion, loading states, empty states, and error states.

  8. Run the project's checks and 21st review <changed paths>. Apply only safe, deterministic fixes automatically.

Design rules

  • Prefer project tokens over new arbitrary values.
  • Prefer existing components over parallel lookalikes.
  • Preserve established density, radii, typography, iconography, and layout rhythm unless the user explicitly requests a redesign.
  • Use real product copy and states when available.
  • Avoid decorative gradients, excessive cards, glass effects, huge headlines, and animation unless supported by the project or requested.
  • Never claim a component, token, or capability exists without inspecting it.

Handoff

Report the direction used, reused 21st/project components, files changed, and verification performed. Record a durable visual choice in .21st/design.json under decisions when the user selects a new direction.

Files

What ships with it

1 file beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

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. 2d ago First seen · 54 lines · 111 tokens per session scan A 746095b0c07e

Subscribe to this mod's changes

21st-ui-build is a skill published in the GitHub repository 21st-dev/claude-code-plugin (7 stars, last pushed 7d ago), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 111 tokens to every session and 536 once invoked, about $0.0006 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 2026-08-31.

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