frontend-design

frontend-design is a skill for Claude Code from gvkhosla/compound-engineering-pi. It costs 81 tokens per session (2,973 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A set of guidelines for building web interfaces such as landing pages, web apps, dashboards, and components. It covers understanding an existing design system, creating the interface, and checking it visually.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when designing or changing web interfaces, including greenfield projects and existing applications.
Why use it?
It helps keep new or modified frontend work consistent with the project and avoids generic-looking layouts.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: shipped in a Claude Code plugin. Also seen: names the AskUserQuestion tool; mentions Claude Code; mentions Codex.

Part of the compound-engineering plugin — 41 skills, 1 MCP server shipped together

Good fit Use it when designing or changing web interfaces, including greenfield projects and existing applications.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/gvkhosla/compound-engineering-pi/frontend-design
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.

Any agent
npx skills add gvkhosla/compound-engineering-pi --skill frontend-design
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/gvkhosla/compound-engineering-pi

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install compound-engineering, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 41 skills, 1 MCP server.

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 frontend-design

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/gvkhosla/compound-engineering-pi/frontend-design.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/gvkhosla/compound-engineering-pi/frontend-design)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/gvkhosla/compound-engineering-pi/frontend-design"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/gvkhosla/compound-engineering-pi/frontend-design.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 81 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 2,973 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
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 5.1 $0.00081 $0.02973
Opus 5 $0.00041 $0.01486
Sonnet 5 $0.00016 $0.00595
Haiku 4.5 $0.00008 $0.00297

Measured 8d ago against content hash 1df370e2e98e, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-08, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

frontend-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 8d 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

1 near-identical copy found in the catalogue:

plugins/compound-engineering/skills/frontend-design/SKILL.md · 259 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 259 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Frontend Design

Guide creation of distinctive, production-grade frontend interfaces that avoid generic AI aesthetics. This skill covers the full lifecycle: detect what exists, plan the design, build with intention, and verify visually.

Authority Hierarchy

Every rule in this skill is a default, not a mandate.

  1. Existing design system / codebase patterns -- highest priority, always respected
  2. User's explicit instructions -- override skill defaults
  3. Skill defaults -- apply in greenfield work or when the user asks for design guidance

When working in an existing codebase with established patterns, follow those patterns. When the user specifies a direction that contradicts a default, follow the user.

Workflow

Detect context -> Plan the design -> Build -> Verify visually

Layer 0: Context Detection

Before any design work, examine the codebase for existing design signals. This determines how much of the skill's opinionated guidance applies.

What to Look For

  • Design tokens / CSS variables: --color-*, --spacing-*, --font-* custom properties, theme files
  • Component libraries: shadcn/ui, Material UI, Chakra, Ant Design, Radix, or project-specific component directories
  • CSS frameworks: tailwind.config.*, styled-components theme, Bootstrap imports, CSS modules with consistent naming
  • Typography: Font imports in HTML/CSS, @font-face declarations, Google Fonts links
  • Color palette: Defined color scales, brand color files, design token exports
  • Animation libraries: Framer Motion, GSAP, anime.js, Motion One, Vue Transition imports
  • Spacing / layout patterns: Consistent spacing scale usage, grid systems, layout components

Use the platform's native file-search and content-search tools (e.g., Glob/Grep in Claude Code) to scan for these signals. Do not use shell commands for routine file exploration.

Mode Classification

Based on detected signals, choose a mode:

  • Existing system (4+ signals across multiple categories): Defer to it. The skill's aesthetic opinions (typography, color, motion) yield to the established system. Structural guidance (composition, copy, accessibility, verification) still applies.
  • Partial system (1-3 signals): Follow what exists; apply skill defaults only for areas where no convention was detected. For example, if Tailwind is configured but no component library exists, follow the Tailwind tokens and apply skill guidance for component structure.
  • Greenfield (no signals detected): Full skill guidance applies.
  • Ambiguous (signals are contradictory or unclear): Ask the user before proceeding.

Read the full file on GitHub · 259 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. 8d ago First seen · 259 lines · 81 tokens per session scan A 1df370e2e98e

Subscribe to this mod's changes

frontend-design is a skill published in the GitHub repository gvkhosla/compound-engineering-pi (51 stars, last pushed 4mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 81 tokens to every session and 2,973 once invoked, about $0.0004 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 2026-08-30.