design-reference

design-reference is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from animalzinc/claude-plugins. It costs 0 tokens per session (1,930 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A step-by-step design research process for deciding how a frontend should look before building it. It collects visual references, feedback, design principles, and an approved prototype in a DESIGN_RESEARCH.md file.

In plain words
What is it for?
Starting a design phase, reviewing references, recording stakeholder feedback, and preparing a visual direction for a frontend project.
Why use it?
It turns vague requests such as “make it look modern” into agreed visual decisions before implementation begins.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Part of the design-reference plugin — 1 skill shipped together

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/animalzinc/claude-plugins/design-reference
Any agent
npx skills add animalzinc/claude-plugins --skill design-reference
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/animalzinc/claude-plugins

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Or install design-reference, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 1 skill.

Wrote 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.

agentmods badge for design-reference

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/animalzinc/claude-plugins/design-reference.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/animalzinc/claude-plugins/design-reference)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/animalzinc/claude-plugins/design-reference"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/animalzinc/claude-plugins/design-reference.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 0 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,930 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 $0.01930
Opus 5 $0.00000 $0.00965
Sonnet 5 $0.00000 $0.00386
Haiku 4.5 $0.00000 $0.00193

Measured 5d ago against content hash 1ecb9389fe77, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

design-reference 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 5d 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.

plugins/design-reference/skills/design-reference/SKILL.md · 235 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 235 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.


name: design-reference description: "Iterative design research: brief → references → feedback → principles → prototype → approve. Use when starting a design phase for any frontend project, or when the user says things like 'design pass', 'design phase', 'collect references', 'design research'." disable-model-invocation: false allowed-tools: []

Design reference

Structured design research process that builds visual direction from reference review and stakeholder feedback. Produces a DESIGN_RESEARCH.md document and an approved prototype.

The problem this solves: Design conversations tend to be vague ("make it look modern") or skip straight to prototyping without establishing shared visual language. This process forces explicit reference review and feedback capture before any prototyping begins.

Arguments

$ARGUMENTS - Optional: path(s) to input files (voice memo transcripts, text notes, design brief). If not provided, ask user to describe their design direction.

Core rules

  1. Never skip ahead. No prototyping until principles are synthesized and approved (Step 5 complete).
  2. Capture everything. Record exact quotes and specific reactions per reference. "Like the brightness" and "like the layout" are different signals — both matter.
  3. Always checkpoint. Each step ends with explicit user confirmation before proceeding.
  4. Multiple rounds. Always do at least 2 rounds of references. Round 1 = broad exploration. Round 2+ = focused based on Round 1 patterns.
  5. Accumulate patterns. Maintain a running list of likes/dislikes/patterns that grows with each reference reviewed.

Display current step number prominently: **[Step X/8: Name]**

Process

Step 1: Receive brief

Read provided file(s) or ask user to describe their design direction. Extract:

  • Project type: website, desktop app, mobile app, terminal UI, dashboard, etc.
  • Vibe/tone: any aesthetic preferences mentioned (dark, bright, minimal, bold, etc.)
  • Anti-references: anything explicitly disliked or to avoid
  • Functional constraints: layout requirements, must-have elements, platform
  • Existing design context: current visual state, colors in use, design system, related projects
  • Who uses it: target audience

Read the full file on GitHub · 235 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. 5d ago First seen · 235 lines · 0 tokens per session scan A 1ecb9389fe77

Subscribe to this mod's changes

design-reference is a skill published in the GitHub repository animalzinc/claude-plugins (15 stars, last pushed 15d ago), licensed MIT. It costs nothing until one of its globs matches a file; then it loads 1,930 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 2026-08-30.

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