component-decision-tree

Component decision tree

A skill for building decision trees that map user intents and requirements to specific component selections. The primary output is a set of "Choosing between…" pages in the docs, one per cluster of confusable components, written as the questions a senior designer would ask; the same trees can be written as YAML for tooling when something will read it. Both reduce the guesswork that leads to component misuse, duplication, and inconsistency.

Before you begin: verify references

Confirm that every path in this skill's frontmatter references: exists relative to this SKILL.md. If any is missing, stop: the install is incomplete, usually because a flattening installer (for example npx skills install) dropped the repo-root knowledge-notes/ directory. Tell the user to reinstall by a method in 1-INSTALL.md and run verify-install.sh from the install root. Proceed without the references only if the user explicitly says to, and then say in the output that it was produced without the pack's reference material.

Context

Component selection is the first decision in any design system interaction, and it is the one that AI agents get wrong most often. The failure mode is not random — it follows predictable patterns. An agent selects a Modal when a Dialog was appropriate. It uses a Card where a List Item fits better. It creates a custom component because it could not find the existing one that serves the need.

These errors have the same root cause: the agent does not have a decision framework. It has a list of components (if it has anything at all) and it pattern-matches the user's request against component names and descriptions. This works when the match is obvious ("I need a button" → Button) and fails when the match requires judgment ("I need to show a collection of items that users can filter and sort" → is that a Table, a DataGrid, a List with filters, or a custom composition?).

Decision trees encode the judgment. Instead of relying on an agent's ability to infer the right component from a description, the tree asks a structured sequence of questions that narrow the selection to the correct component. The questions are the same ones a senior designer or developer would ask when advising a junior team member.