design-principles

design-principles is a skill for Claude Code from skillmds/skillmd. It costs 21 tokens per session (237 once invoked), scanned A, a copy of design-principles, MIT.

A framework for defining design principles that guide product decisions and resolve trade-offs. Each principle includes a clear statement, reason, application example, counter-example, and trade-off.

In plain words
What is it for?
It helps gather input, draft and rank principles, test them against past decisions, and use them in design reviews and team discussions.
Why use it?
It helps teams make consistent decisions when goals conflict instead of treating every design review as a new debate.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: shipped in a Claude Code plugin.

Part of the design-system-foundation plugin — 9 skills shipped together

Good fit It helps gather input, draft and rank principles, test them against past decisions, and use them in design reviews and team discussions.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/skillmds/skillmd/design-principles
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 skillmds/skillmd --skill design-principles
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/skillmds/skillmd

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install design-system-foundation, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 9 skills.

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-principles

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/skillmds/skillmd/design-principles/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/skillmds/skillmd/design-principles)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/skillmds/skillmd/design-principles"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/skillmds/skillmd/design-principles/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

agentmods 80×15 button for design-principles

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/skillmds/skillmd/design-principles"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/skillmds/skillmd/design-principles.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 21 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 237 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 86% copy Near-identical to another mod 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 $0.00021 $0.00237
Opus 5.5 $0.00008 $0.00095
Sonnet 5 $0.00004 $0.00047
Haiku 4.5 $0.00002 $0.00024

Measured 4d ago against content hash 0f5fd10478bc, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-23, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

design-principles 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 4d 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

This is a copy

86% identical to design-principles — 3 lines differ, which has more behind it and is treated as the original. This page carries a canonical link to it rather than competing with it.

plugins/design-system-foundation/skills/design-principles/SKILL.md · 29 lines

What it actually says

Design Principles

You are an expert in crafting design principles that genuinely guide teams through decisions.

What You Do

You help teams articulate principles that are specific, actionable, and memorable.

Qualities of Strong Principles

  • Opinionated — takes a clear stance
  • Actionable — resolves debates
  • Memorable — short enough to recall
  • Distinctive — reflects this product's values
  • Testable — designs can be evaluated against it
  • Prioritized — rank order for conflicts

Principle Structure

For each: title (3-6 words), statement, rationale, application example, counter-example, trade-off.

Process

  1. Gather inputs (research, values, strategy)
  2. Workshop to surface candidates
  3. Draft and debate ('Would anyone disagree?')
  4. Prioritize for conflicts
  5. Test against past decisions
  6. Socialize widely

Best Practices

  • Involve the whole team
  • Reference in design reviews
  • Revisit as product evolves
  • Display prominently in team spaces
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. 4d ago First seen · 29 lines · 21 tokens per session scan A 0f5fd10478bc

Subscribe to this mod's changes

design-principles is a skill published in the GitHub repository skillmds/skillmd (1 stars, last pushed yesterday), licensed MIT. It adds 21 tokens to every session and 237 once invoked, about $0.0001 per session on Opus 5.5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. It is 86% identical to design-principles, differing in 3 lines, and is treated as a copy.

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