Reviewing design fidelity

Reviewing Design Fidelity

Purpose

Implementation drifts from design — silently, in small increments, every sprint. Padding shrinks by 2px to fit a label, a hex code gets approximated, a state variant is forgotten. Each drift is invisible alone; together they erode the brand and the design system. This skill performs side-by-side capture and structured comparison so drift is surfaced concretely, with evidence, before it accumulates further.

The skill produces an annotated gap report — not a redesign. It assumes the design is the source of truth and the implementation should match it; if that assumption is wrong (e.g., implementation revealed a design problem), surface that as a separate finding rather than rewriting the design.

When to use this skill

• A Figma URL is shared together with a live URL or built page screenshot
• User asks to "verify design", "compare with Figma", "check publishing", "디자인 검수", "퍼블리싱 검토", "design QA pass"
• After a frontend feature is implemented and before sign-off
• When the design system maintainer reports drift across a release

When NOT to use

• Reviewing the design itself (no implementation yet) → use reviewing-spec-and-policy
• Reviewing code structure / component APIs → use superpowers:requesting-code-review
• Generating new design from code → that's the figma-generate-design skill, not this one

Workflow

1. Identify both sides

Before capturing anything, confirm:

• Design side: Figma file URL + specific frame node IDs to review (one frame per screen state, including hover/focus/error/empty if applicable)
• Implementation side: live URL OR a path to deployed screenshots OR a local dev server URL

If either side is missing, pause and ask. A one-sided "review" is just an opinion.

2. Extract the design context

For each frame:

1. mcp__plugin_figma_figma__get_metadata → confirm frame structure and identify variant set
2. mcp__plugin_figma_figma__get_variable_defs → pull design tokens (color/spacing/typography) referenced by the frame. These are the canonical values; any drift in implementation should be measured against tokens, not against rendered pixel values, when tokens exist.
3. mcp__plugin_figma_figma__get_design_context → structured component data + Code Connect mappings if present
4. mcp__plugin_figma_figma__get_screenshot → reference image for the frame

See references/figma-extraction.md for tactics on multi-variant frames and Code Connect interpretation.

3. Capture the implementation

Use Playwright MCP to capture the live page in matched viewport sizes:

1. browser_resize to the design's intended viewport (mobile 375, tablet 768, desktop 1440 — or match the Figma frame width)
2. browser_navigate to the page URL
3. browser_snapshot for the accessibility tree (text content, ARIA roles, heading structure)
4. browser_take_screenshot for visual comparison
5. For interaction states, use browser_hover / browser_click then re-snapshot to capture hover/active/focus visuals
6. browser_console_messages once per page — console errors during rendering are themselves fidelity findings (broken images, missing fonts)

See references/playwright-capture.md for state coverage and viewport-matrix patterns.

4. Compare across the fidelity matrix

Apply the seven dimensions from references/fidelity-matrix.md:

1. Layout & spacing — padding, margin, gap match design tokens
2. Typography — font family, weight, size, line-height, letter-spacing
3. Color — fills, strokes, text — match tokens (not just visually similar)
4. Iconography & imagery — correct asset, correct size, correct positioning
5. State coverage — hover, focus, active, disabled, loading, empty, error all implemented
6. Responsive behavior — design intent preserved at each breakpoint, not just "doesn't crash"
7. Accessibility — contrast ratio, focus visibility, semantic structure, alt text, keyboard reachability

Each dimension produces zero or more findings.

5. Prioritize by user impact

• Critical — broken or unusable (missing state, content overflow that hides info, accessibility blocker)
• Major — visibly wrong (color/spacing off enough that a designer would call it out, missing variant)
• Minor — token drift not visually detectable but breaks design-system contract (e.g., 14px instead of token text-sm/15px)

Skip subjective preference findings ("I'd prefer more whitespace"); only flag drift from the documented design.

6. Produce the report

Use the structure in references/fidelity-report-template.md. Each finding includes:

• Frame reference (Figma node ID)
• Implementation reference (URL + viewport)
• Side-by-side evidence (screenshot paths or quoted token values)
• Dimension category
• Priority
• Concrete fix suggestion (token name, CSS property, or component prop change)

When the report leads to an actual PR, embed the captured screenshots in the PR body — text-only fidelity reports lose their evidence the moment the temp screenshot files are deleted. See references/fidelity-report-template.md § "Embedding evidence in PRs".

7. Hand off to the next skill

A fidelity review often surfaces gaps that aren't fidelity gaps — empty/error states missing entirely, API contract drift, no integration coverage for the BE change you just discovered. Don't fix them silently inside this skill — invoke the right next-step skill so the work stays auditable. See references/skill-handoff.md for the trigger matrix.

Principles

• Tokens first, pixels second. A 14px font-size when the design token is text-sm (15px) is a finding even if visually indistinguishable — the design system contract is what gets re-rendered when tokens change.
• Capture all states, not just the default. Most drift hides in hover/focus/error/empty states because those rarely appear in a happy-path design review.
• Match viewports. A "looks fine on my laptop" review misses the 70% of users on other viewports. Capture each breakpoint in the design.
• Evidence is required. Every finding must reference a captured artifact (screenshot, snapshot tree, console log, computed style). "It looks off" without artifact = not a finding.
• Distinguish drift from design conflict. If implementation reveals a design problem (e.g., text actually overflows in real content), that's a separate finding flagging the design — don't try to silently "fix it" in implementation.

Detailed references

• references/figma-extraction.md — tactics for multi-variant frames, Code Connect mappings, and choosing which frames to review
• references/playwright-capture.md — viewport matrix, state-capture checklist, console-error interpretation
• references/fidelity-matrix.md — full descriptions and example findings for the seven dimensions
• references/fidelity-report-template.md — annotated template with example findings showing artifact references, plus PR-embed guidance
• references/skill-handoff.md — when to invoke improving-feature-completeness, running-integration-tests, or reviewing-spec-and-policy from a fidelity review