ux-empty-states

ux-empty-states is a skill for Claude Code from Uxcel-Lab/product-skills. It costs 76 tokens per session (1,739 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A design guide for empty states: screens with no content because a user is new, has finished or removed everything, found no results, or reached a missing page such as a 404 error. It explains the situation and points to a useful next action.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to design or review first-use screens, completed lists, no-search-results pages, empty dashboards, and 404 pages. It helps choose the right explanation, action, illustration, and tone for each cause.
Why use it?
It prevents blank or unhelpful screens from leaving people confused or stuck. It also keeps guidance calm and avoids filling a simple message with too many distractions or choices.

Skill for Claude Code

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

Part of the uxcel plugin — 58 skills shipped together

Good fit Use it to design or review first-use screens, completed lists, no-search-results pages, empty dashboards, and 404 pages. It helps choose the right explanation, action, illustration, and tone for each cause.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/uxcel-lab/product-skills/empty-states
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 Uxcel-Lab/product-skills --skill empty-states
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/Uxcel-Lab/product-skills

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install uxcel, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 58 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 ux-empty-states

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/uxcel-lab/product-skills/empty-states/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/uxcel-lab/product-skills/empty-states)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/uxcel-lab/product-skills/empty-states"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/uxcel-lab/product-skills/empty-states/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 ux-empty-states

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/uxcel-lab/product-skills/empty-states"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/uxcel-lab/product-skills/empty-states.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 76 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,739 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 $0.00076 $0.01739
Opus 5 $0.00038 $0.00870
Sonnet 5 $0.00015 $0.00348
Haiku 4.5 $0.00008 $0.00174

Measured 10d ago against content hash ab81053abe55, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-10, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

ux-empty-states 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 10d 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.

ux/screens/empty-states/SKILL.md · 104 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 104 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Empty States Skill

How this skill behaves (read first)

This is a generative skill. The default failure mode is the dead screen: "No tasks found." — a blank dead-end at exactly the moment a user is newest, most confused, or most blocked. Every empty state is secretly one of the product's highest-leverage screens: it's onboarding (first use), reassurance (cleared), or recovery (no results / 404). The opposite failure exists too — an "empty" screen so stuffed with text, illustration, and three CTAs that it's no longer calm. This skill gates:

  1. Establish why the screen is empty — the cause picks the pattern.
  2. Apply the always-true core — explain + guide, never blame, stay calm.
  3. Surface the embellishment decisions (illustration, CTAs, humor) with trade-offs.

Then it hands off to ux-heuristics-audit, ux-accessibility-audit, ux-aesthetics-audit, and ux-microcopy-audit for validation.


Step 0 — Establish why the screen is empty

The cause picks the pattern:

  • First use — the user hasn't created anything yet. This is onboarding's last mile: explain what lives here and make the first action effortless ("Add your first task").
  • Cleared / completed — the user emptied it themselves (inbox zero, done list). Tone shifts to positive reinforcement: "You're all caught up!" + a low-pressure next step.
  • No results — a search/filter came up empty. Not really "empty" — it's a recovery moment: spelling check, search tips, popular categories, recent searches (align with ux-search's no-dead-ends rule).
  • Error / 404 — something's missing or broken. Explain plainly, no jargon, no blame, and route back to safety (homepage, popular content).

Also establish platform and brand voice — they bound illustration style and whether humor is safe.


The always-apply core (correct for almost every case)

Explain + guide — the two jobs every empty state has

  • Say why it's empty, specifically. ❌ "No tasks found" ✅ "You're all caught up! Add a new task to stay productive." Clarity plus encouragement, never a bare negation.
  • Always offer a next step. Even a basic informational empty state hints at what to do ("Your inbox is empty. Start by composing a new message"). An empty state with no path forward is a defect.
  • Action empty states pair message and CTA: the button continues the sentence — "Your cart is empty. Start shopping now!" → [Shop now]. Secondary paths (docs, examples) can live as links in the copy.
  • Never blame the user — especially on no-results and 404 pages. The system explains what happened and offers routes, not fault.

Read the full file on GitHub · 104 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. 10d ago First seen · 104 lines · 76 tokens per session scan A ab81053abe55

Subscribe to this mod's changes

ux-empty-states is a skill published in the GitHub repository Uxcel-Lab/product-skills (10 stars, last pushed 2mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 76 tokens to every session and 1,739 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 2026-08-31.

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