Design auto orchestrator

Design Auto Orchestrator

This is a background judgment layer for design-adjacent work. Treat vague user language, project files, screenshots, and intermediate implementation discoveries as useful product/design signal. Infer the real job, then route to the smallest useful combination of local design skills and tools.

Core Rule

Do not wait for the user to name a skill, a downstream tool, or an invocation method. If the request or any work step touches interface design, frontend visuals, UX quality, design systems, icons, screenshots, accessibility, layout, motion, or Open Design, classify the task and proceed in the background.

Do not present this skill as a user-facing command. The user should be able to describe normal work, and the agent should decide when this routing layer applies.

Priority Rule

When this skill and a more specific design skill both appear relevant, use this skill first. The router decides whether to load the specific skill.

Do not skip this router because frontend-design, hallmark, ui-ux-pro-max, ui-design-brain, web-design-guidelines, better-icons, or open-design also matches the user request.

Automatic Background Use

Apply this skill at task start or mid-task when design signals appear. Examples of mid-task signals:

• A repo scan reveals React/Vue/Svelte/Next app UI files, component libraries, Tailwind, shadcn, CSS variables, or design tokens.
• A coding task changes visible UI, layout, typography, colors, spacing, icons, interactive states, motion, or responsive behavior.
• A screenshot, image, Figma/Open Design artifact, product page, dashboard, app screen, or portfolio appears in the context.
• A verification pass finds visual regressions, clipped text, poor contrast, broken mobile layout, generic AI-looking styling, or inconsistent iconography.

When this happens, enter this routing flow for the relevant substep, load only the needed downstream skill files, act, validate, and then return to the main task.

Load only the selected downstream skill files. Do not blindly read every design skill.

Automatic Intake

Before choosing tools, classify:

• Surface: marketing page, portfolio, SaaS app, dashboard, admin, form, table, component, mobile screen, deck/artifact, screenshot review, design-system work.
• Task mode: create, redesign, polish, audit, critique, implement, extract, choose style, select icons, generate Open Design artifact.
• Risk level: light, medium, heavy.
• Inputs present: repo code, screenshots/images, DESIGN.md, PRODUCT.md, Tailwind/shadcn/design tokens, brand assets, Open Design project.

Prefer acting over asking. Ask one concise question only when two routes would produce materially different outputs.

Routing

Use references/routing.md for the full routing table when the task is not obvious.

Fast defaults:

• Need a design system or style recommendation: run ui-ux-pro-max first.
• SaaS/admin/dashboard/forms/tables/components: use ui-design-brain.
• Landing page, portfolio, expressive web page, visual redesign: use ui-ux-pro-max first when the brief is vague or assets are sparse, then frontend-design, then hallmark or design-taste-frontend for anti-slop polish.
• Resume/PDF/text-only personal website with weak visual assets: do not jump straight to HTML. Run a visual strategy pass first (ui-ux-pro-max or a concrete reference source), then implement, then critique screenshots with hallmark and impeccable.
• "Too AI", "not premium", "ugly", "generic", "make it high-end": use hallmark; add impeccable for deeper critique.
• Review/audit/accessibility/responsive quality: use web-design-guidelines; add hallmark audit for visual slop.
• Icons: use better-icons CLI.
• Local-first design generation/artifact/project workflow: verify Open Design daemon, then use open-design MCP or od CLI.
• Specific visual style from the 67-style library: read only that slug under the local source cache design-skill-sources\awesome-design-skills\skills\<slug>.
• Research/strategy/ops/handoff/design-process work: read only the relevant plugin under the local source cache design-skill-sources\designer-skills.

Workflow Depth

Choose the lowest depth that will satisfy the request:

• Light: one skill/tool, no broad scan. Use for icons, small component polish, one review, quick style advice.
• Medium: project scan + design system + implementation/polish skill. Use for new pages, dashboards, redesigned screens.
• Heavy: project scan + design system + implementation + anti-slop pass + screenshot or guideline audit. Use for user-facing deliverables, homepage redesigns, production UI, or when the user asks for complete, production, deploy, ship, high-end, or audit.

Project Scan

For existing repos, inspect in parallel where useful:

• package.json, framework config, src/, app/, pages/, components/
• Tailwind/shadcn/Radix/Material/Fluent/Carbon/Ant/Bootstrap usage
• DESIGN.md, PRODUCT.md, README.md
• CSS variables, theme files, fonts, icon packages
• screenshots or attached images

Preserve existing design systems, routes, tokens, analytics-relevant names, and component boundaries unless the user explicitly asks for a rebuild.

Tool Commands

Use these deterministic helpers when needed. Resolve Codex home first:

$CodexHome = if ($env:CODEX_HOME) { $env:CODEX_HOME } else { Join-Path $HOME ".codex" }
python (Join-Path $CodexHome "skills\ui-ux-pro-max\scripts\search.py") "<brief>" --design-system -p "<Project>"
better-icons search <query> --limit 10 --json
better-icons get <icon-id>
Invoke-WebRequest -UseBasicParsing http://127.0.0.1:7456/api/health
codex -c 'service_tier="fast"' mcp get open-design

Run the bundled health check when the design toolchain itself may be broken:

$CodexHome = if ($env:CODEX_HOME) { $env:CODEX_HOME } else { Join-Path $HOME ".codex" }
powershell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File (Join-Path $CodexHome "skills\design-auto-orchestrator\scripts\health-check.ps1")

Done Criteria

For design build or redesign tasks, done means:

• The selected design route is clear from the work.
• Code or artifact is actually changed/created when requested.
• A visual direction was chosen before implementation for websites, portfolios, landing pages, and other user-facing surfaces.
• Obvious AI-design tropes are removed.
• Mobile/responsive text and controls fit.
• Icons are from a consistent source.
• Accessibility basics are checked for interactive UI.
• A smoke test, screenshot check, lint/build, or relevant health check ran when feasible.
• A taste pass happened after screenshots. Passing layout, contrast, and responsiveness checks is not enough; if the screenshot looks generic, sparse, awkward, or unimpressive for the target audience, iterate before final.

If a downstream tool is unavailable, name the missing piece and continue with the best local fallback.