clone-website

What this skill does

# Clone Website

You are about to reverse-engineer and rebuild **$ARGUMENTS** as pixel-perfect clones.

When multiple URLs are provided, process them independently and in parallel where possible, while keeping each site's extraction artifacts isolated in dedicated folders (for example, `docs/research/<hostname>/`).

This is not a two-phase process (inspect then build). You are a **foreman walking the job site** — as you inspect each section of the page, you write a detailed specification to a file, then hand that file to a specialist builder agent with everything they need. Extraction and construction happen in parallel, but extraction is meticulous and produces auditable artifacts.

## Scope Defaults

The target is whatever page `$ARGUMENTS` resolves to. Clone exactly what's visible at that URL. Unless the user specifies otherwise, use these defaults:

- **Fidelity level:** Pixel-perfect — exact match in colors, spacing, typography, animations
- **In scope:** Visual layout and styling, component structure and interactions, responsive design, mock data for demo purposes
- **Out of scope:** Real backend / database, authentication, real-time features, SEO optimization, accessibility audit
- **Customization:** None — pure emulation

If the user provides additional instructions (specific fidelity level, customizations, extra context), honor those over the defaults.

## Pre-Flight

1. **Browser automation is required.** Check for available browser MCP tools (Chrome MCP, Playwright MCP, Browserbase MCP, Puppeteer MCP, etc.). Use whichever is available — if multiple exist, prefer Chrome MCP. If none are detected, ask the user which browser tool they have and how to connect it. This skill cannot work without browser automation.
2. Parse `$ARGUMENTS` as one or more URLs. Normalize and validate each URL; if any are invalid, ask the user to correct them before proceeding. For each valid URL, verify it is accessible via your browser MCP tool.
3. Verify the base project builds: `npm run build`. The Next.js + shadcn/ui + Tailwind v4 scaffold should already be in place. If not, tell the user to set it up first.
4. Create the output directories if they don't exist: `docs/research/`, `docs/research/components/`, `docs/design-references/`, `scripts/`. For multiple clones, also prepare per-site folders like `docs/research/<hostname>/` and `docs/design-references/<hostname>/`.
5. When working with multiple sites in one command, optionally confirm whether to run them in parallel (recommended, if resources allow) or sequentially to avoid overload.

## Guiding Principles

These are the truths that separate a successful clone from a "close enough" mess. Internalize them — they should inform every decision you make.

### 1. Completeness Beats Speed

Every builder agent must receive **everything** it needs to do its job perfectly: screenshot, exact CSS values, downloaded assets with local paths, real text content, component structure. If a builder has to guess anything — a color, a font size, a padding value — you have failed at extraction. Take the extra minute to extract one more property rather than shipping an incomplete brief.

### 2. Small Tasks, Perfect Results

When an agent gets "build the entire features section," it glosses over details — it approximates spacing, guesses font sizes, and produces something "close enough" but clearly wrong. When it gets a single focused component with exact CSS values, it nails it every time.

Look at each section and judge its complexity. A simple banner with a heading and a button? One agent. A complex section with 3 different card variants, each with unique hover states and internal layouts? One agent per card variant plus one for the section wrapper. When in doubt, make it smaller.

**Complexity budget rule:** If a builder prompt exceeds ~150 lines of spec content, the section is too complex for one agent. Break it into smaller pieces. This is a mechanical check — don't override it with "but it's all related."

### 3. Real Content, Real Assets

Extract the actual text, images, videos, and SVGs from the live site. This is a clone, not a mockup. Use `element.textContent`, download every `<img>` and `<video>`, extract inline `<svg>` elements as React components. The only time you generate content is when something is clearly server-generated and unique per session.

**Layered assets matter.** A section that looks like one image is often multiple layers — a background watercolor/gradient, a foreground UI mockup PNG, an overlay icon. Inspect each container's full DOM tree and enumerate ALL `<img>` elements and background images within it, including absolutely-positioned overlays. Missing an overlay image makes the clone look empty even if the background is correct.

### 4. Foundation First

Nothing can be built until the foundation exists: global CSS with the target site's design tokens (colors, fonts, spacing), TypeScript types for the content structures, and global assets (fonts, favicons). This is sequential and non-negotiable. Everything after this can be parallel.

### 5. Extract How It Looks AND How It Behaves

A website is not a screenshot — it's a living thing. Elements move, change, appear, and disappear in response to scrolling, hovering, clicking, resizing, and time. If you only extract the static CSS of each element, your clone will look right in a screenshot but feel dead when someone actually uses it.

For every element, extract its **appearance** (exact computed CSS via `getComputedStyle()`) AND its **behavior** (what changes, what triggers the change, and how the transition happens). Not "it looks like 16px" — extract the actual computed value. Not "the nav changes on scroll" — document the exact trigger (scroll position, IntersectionObserver threshold, viewport intersection), the before and after states (both sets of CSS values), and the transition (duration, easing, CSS transition vs. JS-driven vs. CSS `animation-timeline`).

Examples of behaviors to watch for — these are illustrative, not exhaustive. The page may do things not on this list, and you must catch those too:
- A navbar that shrinks, changes background, or gains a shadow after scrolling past a threshold
- Elements that animate into view when they enter the viewport (fade-up, slide-in, stagger delays)
- Sections that snap into place on scroll (`scroll-snap-type`)
- Parallax layers that move at different rates than the scroll
- Hover states that animate (not just change — the transition duration and easing matter)
- Dropdowns, modals, accordions with enter/exit animations
- Scroll-driven progress indicators or opacity transitions
- Auto-playing carousels or cycling content
- Dark-to-light (or any theme) transitions between page sections
- **Tabbed/pill content that cycles** — buttons that switch visible card sets with transitions
- **Scroll-driven tab/accordion switching** — sidebars where the active item auto-changes as content scrolls past (IntersectionObserver, NOT click handlers)
- **Smooth scroll libraries** (Lenis, Locomotive Scroll) — check for `.lenis` class or scroll container wrappers

### 6. Identify the Interaction Model Before Building

This is the single most expensive mistake in cloning: building a click-based UI when the original is scroll-driven, or vice versa. Before writing any builder prompt for an interactive section, you must definitively answer: **Is this section driven by clicks, scrolls, hovers, time, or some combination?**

How to determine this:
1. **Don't click first.** Scroll through the section slowly and observe if things change on their own as you scroll.
2. If they do, it's scroll-driven. Extract the mechanism: `IntersectionObserver`, `scroll-snap`, `position: sticky`, `animation-timeline`, or JS scroll listeners.
3. If nothing changes on scroll, THEN click/hover to test for click/hover-driven interactivity.
4. Document the interaction model explicitly in the component spec: "INTERACTION MODEL: scroll-driven with Intersec