Design Loop

This skill is a complete design-engineering engagement, run one session at a time. The arc:

1. Read before writing — understand the codebase and the product before touching code; write a short point of view (design/POV.md).
2. Constraint system before screens — codify type, spacing, color, radius, shadow, and motion as enforceable artifacts. This is the step most teams skip, and it's the whole game: constraints make every downstream decision smaller.
3. One vertical slice to world-class — take the single most important surface all the way. It becomes the reference implementation everything else is judged against.
4. Systematize outward — the loop. Surface by surface, refactor onto the system; the system absorbs the learnings, not just the individual screens.
5. Make yourself replaceable — the rules, rubric, patterns, and decisions all live in files. The constraint system is the deliverable; the redesigned screens are almost a byproduct.

Phases 1–3 happen once, at bootstrap (see below). After that, every session runs ONE iteration on ONE surface and stops at the human gate. The session boundary is the iteration boundary — fresh context, read state from disk, do the work, write state back, stop. This keeps every run auditable in git and resumable later.

The taste lives in files, not in this skill. This skill is the procedure; the project's design/ files are the point of view. Never invent design opinions mid-loop — read them from the system files. The loop is what keeps you honest; the constraint system is where conviction lives. Most failed engagements have one without the other — endless tasteful exploration that never ships, or fast shipping with no point of view. This process holds both at once.

The state files

Everything the loop needs lives in a design/ directory at the repo root. Read ALL of these at the start of every run: