Compose preview design board

Compose Preview — Design Board

Assemble the PNGs produced by compose-preview into a single, self-contained HTML design board — categories, groups, captions, and layout — so a set of renders travels as one coherent brief instead of loose screenshots. The board is built for import into Claude Design (and similar design tools).

This skill assumes the compose-preview skill is installed — it owns the renderer, CLI, and Gradle plugin that produce the PNGs this skill arranges. Check first with compose-preview --version; if it's missing, ask the user to run the bootstrap installer (which covers the compose-preview skills):

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/yschimke/compose-ai-tools/main/scripts/install.sh \
  | bash

Source

This skill is maintained at github.com/yschimke/skills under skills/compose-preview-design-board/. To check for updates, compare the installed copy against main (e.g. git ls-remote https://github.com/yschimke/skills HEAD). The renderer and CLI that produce the input PNGs ship from github.com/yschimke/compose-ai-tools.

When to use this skill

• You have a set of rendered @Preview PNGs and want to hand them to a designer or to Claude Design as a structured brief — grouped by feature/screen, with captions and intent notes — not a flat folder of images.
• You want one portable artifact (a single HTML file, images inlined) that can be opened in a browser, served from a branch / GitHub Pages, or dropped into a design tool.

For rendering the previews, see the compose-preview skill. For reviewing a UI PR by diffing base vs head renders, see compose-preview-review. This skill is the export/presentation step that sits on top of those.

Workflow

1. Render previews. Use the compose-preview CLI to produce PNGs and the manifest of what was rendered:

   compose-preview show --module <m> --json > /tmp/<m>-show.json
   

2. Write a board spec. A JSON document describing how to arrange the renders (categories → groups → items, each item pointing at a PNG path). See Board spec schema below.

3. Generate the HTML. Build one self-contained file from the spec — every referenced PNG inlined as base64, missing PNGs shown as visible placeholders rather than failing the build, and deterministic output (no timestamps or random ids, so re-runs diff cleanly). Run your project's builder if it ships one; otherwise generate it from the contract below:

   # spec may also be piped on stdin instead of --spec
   python3 scripts/build-design-board.py --spec board-spec.json --out design-board.html
   

4. Import to Claude Design. Pick the route that fits:

   • Web capture (best fidelity) — open design-board.html in a browser, or serve it (GitHub Pages / a branch), and use Claude Design's web capture on the page.
   • File upload — drag the .html (or the individual PNGs) into Claude Design's drop zone.
   • Connect the GitHub repo for design-system context alongside the board.

   Grouping, captions, and flow order travel with the images, so the board reads as one brief rather than a pile of screenshots.

   Targeting Figma instead? Don't hand-place these renders into Figma from here — use the figma-catalog-import skill. It owns the Figma side (the @design-parity/figma-plugin, reconcile by componentId, mode-awareness) and takes either a whole-system catalog or this board's curated render set. Claude Design is a light HTML/PNG drop-in and stays here; Figma is the one heavy destination and lives there.

Board spec schema

JSON, top-down:

Level	Fields
Top level	title, tagline, footer, optional palette (colour swatches), categories[]
Category	badge, title, intro, groups[]
Group	title, note (the design intent / rationale), layout, items[]
Item	src (PNG path from compose-preview), caption, optional sub (state / size / theme)

layout controls how a group's items are arranged:

• "row" — left-to-right wrapping; good for phone screens.
• "grid" — auto-fill grid; good for theme swatches and tiles.
• "wide" — full-width frames; good for size matrices.

The builder script

A reference builder ships beside this SKILL.md at scripts/build-design-board.py — a small, dependency-free Python 3 script (no pip install). It reads the spec, inlines every image, and writes one self-contained HTML file. Swap in your project's own builder if you have one, as long as it holds the same contract:

• reads the spec from --spec <file> or stdin, and writes to --out <file> or stdout;
• inlines every item src PNG as a data:image/png;base64,… URI, so the output is one file with no external dependencies;
• renders a missing or unreadable PNG as a visible placeholder — never fails the build;
• emits deterministic HTML — no timestamps, random ids, or absolute paths — so re-runs diff cleanly;
• resolves item src paths against --base (default: the current directory), so a spec stays portable — never hardcode an absolute checkout path like /home/user/<project>, or the board breaks in every other checkout.

Related

• compose-preview skill — render the @Preview PNGs this board is built from: CLI, Gradle plugin, capture modes.
• compose-preview-review skill — review a UI PR by rendering base and head and diffing them.
• compose-design-catalog skill — the whole-system sibling of this skill: instead of a curated subset, catalog an entire component system into a durable, tool-neutral bundle.
• figma-catalog-import skill — take a board or catalog into Figma (plugin + reconcile). The Figma destination adapter for both arrangers.