Design

acta:design

The design / brand / marketing layer of Acta. It reads your product docs (and any existing code) as the source of truth, establishes the project's design source of truth under docs/design/, and generates real design (web pages, logo, deck, ads, og-image) that stays consistent with it. Doc-driven and domain-agnostic — the design inherits the same truth as the code, not a generic look.

Shared: ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/acta/principles.md. Reads the project's docs/product/* and any styling in the code.

Language

Generate content in the project's documentation language (registry language:, default English); talk to the user in the language they use. See ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/acta/principles.md.

What it establishes — docs/design/

A tiered senior-designer doc-base (like the engineering disciplines: core / standard / full), not a flat four files. The full catalog (paths, sections, growth) is in ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/acta/doc-catalog.md under "SKILL-OWNED LAYER: design". Right-size the tier to the project — offer core pre-checked, standard when there's real UI/deployment, full when the project is large/long-lived.

Core (every design project):

• brand.md — identity, positioning, voice/tone, mood, audience (derived from docs/product: PRD, target users, positioning).
• design-principles.md — the guiding design philosophy: principles, do/don't, and what wins when they conflict.
• design-system.md — the project's actual visual language, not a fixed template: the Approach (how styling is done here — detected from the code if it exists: Tailwind / CSS Modules / styled-components / vanilla CSS / a design language; decided with you if greenfield — never dictate Tailwind by default), How To Use, Rules (component reuse, states: hover/focus/disabled, variants, do/don't — captured, not prescribed), and an index pointing to the granular docs below.
• tokens.md — color / typography / spacing / radius / elevation / motion tokens in one fenced text block (formatter-proof: never reflowed by Prettier). This is the single source of truth every surface and every line of UI code pulls from.
• messaging.md — the copy source of truth: voice + a reusable copy library (taglines, value props, section / CTA / FAQ copy), grounded in the product.
• components.md — inventory of components with their variants and states (as they exist or are planned).
• docs/design/README.md — the folder index (regenerated), listing every design doc by tier.

Standard (real UI / deployment) — the granular expansions, each grounded in tokens.md, never off-token: typography.md, color.md, spacing-layout.md, iconography.md, imagery.md, motion.md, accessibility.md (contrast/focus/keyboard/reduced-motion/ARIA), content-style-guide.md, ux-flows.md (IA + key flows + empty/ loading/error states), and references.md (reference sites/images + what to borrow — layout/feel only, not their tokens/copy — plus a moodboard and anti-references).

Full (large / long-lived):

• docs/design/decisions/NNNN-*.md — Design Decision Records (DDR), the design parallel of ADRs: why this palette / typeface / spacing scale / motion character was chosen, alternatives, why-not, long-term impact. Per-item and immutable except Status; maintain docs/design/decisions/README.md as the index. Template: templates/DDR.md.tmpl.
• design-qa-checklist.md — pre-ship visual / interaction / responsive / accessibility / cross-surface checks.

Create only what applies: a non-UI project (CLI, library, backend) gets brand + design-principles + messaging (and a light or no design-system/tokens), skipping the visual/UI docs and components.

Flow

1. Read the source of truth. docs/product/* (PRD, target users, positioning), any existing brand, and scan the code for the real design language (styling approach, theme/tokens, component library) when code exists.
2. Ask only what's missing (≤4 via AskUserQuestion): mood/character, reference sites or images to resemble, brand decisions the docs don't cover. Recommend from the detected project type; the user confirms. (No separate design-brief — the intake is these few questions plus the product docs.)
3. Write docs/design/ at the chosen tier — detected values as-is, decided values from the answers, unknown → TBD (never fabricate a hex or font you weren't given or didn't confirm). Every granular doc pulls from tokens.md; nothing off-token. When full is selected, seed docs/design/decisions/ with a DDR for each significant choice made here (palette / typeface / spacing character), and its README.md index. Regenerate docs/design/README.md.
4. Generate on request (a mode): brand board · web (landing / pages) · logo · deck · ads · og-image. Produce a real Artifact (HTML / SVG) that uses the tokens.md values + design-system rules and the messaging copy — not lorem-ipsum, not off-brand. Save the spec to docs/design/<surface>.md; the live preview is the Artifact.
5. Wire the brain. Refresh the {{DESIGN_LINKS}} ("Design & brand") block in CLAUDE.md (marker-scoped) → design-principles.md, design-system.md, tokens.md, messaging.md — so when you or Claude write code it follows the project's visual language (use the tokens, reuse the components, keep the styling approach). Refresh docs/README.md + the registry.

Rules

• Consistency is the whole point. Everything — generated design, the granular docs, and code guidance — flows from tokens.md + design-system.md + messaging.md. No rogue colors / fonts / spacing outside the tokens.
• Record the why. For a significant, hard-to-reverse choice, capture the value in the granular doc and the reasoning in a DDR (full tier) — mirrors how code decisions become ADRs.
• Detect, don't dictate. The design-system mirrors the project's real conventions; it never forces a stack.
• Never fabricate a brand asset, hex, or font the user didn't give or approve → TBD.
• Never overwrite existing design docs/code without consent. Anti-bloat: in-place, consolidated, no versioned files.
• Domain-agnostic. Content in the project's documentation language. Operate by ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/acta/principles.md.
• Turn the docs into Claude Design prompts with /acta:design-prompt; keep them in sync with /acta:track.