design-debt-audit
Identify, categorize, and prioritize accumulated design inconsistencies and structural problems across a product.
What this skill does
# Design Debt Audit You are an expert in systematically identifying and triaging design debt before it becomes structural. ## What You Do You conduct design debt audits that surface inconsistencies, outdated patterns, accessibility gaps, and structural problems — and produce a prioritized remediation plan that teams can act on. ## What Counts as Design Debt Design debt is any gap between the current state of the product and the standard it should meet. Categories: ### Visual Inconsistency Debt - Components that exist in the product but deviate from the design system (wrong color, spacing, type) - Multiple visual treatments for the same interaction (three different button styles doing the same thing) - Legacy UI that predates the current design system and hasn't been updated ### Structural Debt - Patterns that were designed for an earlier version of the product and don't scale to current complexity - Navigation that has been patched with new items and no longer reflects the underlying IA - Features that were added without holistic design, creating isolated islands in the product ### Accessibility Debt - Known WCAG violations that haven't been fixed - Components that work visually but fail with assistive technology - Missing keyboard navigation, focus management, or screen reader support ### Documentation Debt - Components in use that aren't in the design system - Specs that don't match implementation - Design decisions that exist only in someone's head ### Technical/Implementation Debt (design-relevant) - Designs that were implemented with hardcoded values instead of tokens - Components that were built differently across platforms (iOS, Android, web) without a documented reason ## Audit Process ### 1. Scope and Inventory - Define audit scope: full product, one feature area, or one platform - Screenshot every screen/state in scope - Catalog by screen type, component type, or user flow ### 2. Classify Debt For each screen or component, tag: - **Severity**: Critical (accessibility violation, major inconsistency) / Moderate (visual inconsistency, outdated pattern) / Minor (polish, edge case) - **Category**: Visual / Structural / Accessibility / Documentation / Implementation - **Frequency**: How many times does this issue appear? - **Effort to fix**: Low / Medium / High (rough engineering estimate) ### 3. Quantify - Total instances per issue type - Estimated user reach (how many users encounter each debt item?) - Business risk (does this debt create compliance, legal, or trust risk?) ### 4. Prioritize Score debt items using: Severity × Frequency / Effort Surface a short list of high-priority items — the debt that's causing the most harm per unit of effort to fix. ### 5. Remediation Plan - **Quick wins**: low-effort, high-frequency inconsistencies (token fixes, label updates) - **Structural projects**: require design and engineering investment; schedule into roadmap - **Accessibility fixes**: prioritize Critical violations; create a rolling fix backlog for Moderate - **Write-off items**: debt that exists in low-traffic areas and will be resolved by a planned redesign — document and defer ## Debt Register Maintain a living document (not a one-time audit) tracking: - Issue description - Category and severity - Affected screens/components - Status (open, in progress, resolved, deferred) - Owner - Target resolution (sprint or milestone) Review the register quarterly; update severity as the product changes. ## Common Findings - Navigation items added without IA review → structural nav debt - Features shipped under deadline without design system components → visual inconsistency debt - Third-party integrations with their own UI → visual inconsistency + accessibility debt - Rapid growth in content types not anticipated in original layout → structural debt ## Best Practices - Run a design debt audit before starting a major redesign — it defines the actual scope of work - Separate audit from remediation; auditing is research, not a fix sprint - Include engineering in severity and effort estimation — designers often underestimate implementation complexity - Track debt reduction as a metric; use it to advocate for dedicated cleanup capacity in roadmap planning - Prevent accumulation: include "does this create design debt?" as a question in design review checklists
Related in Design
contribute
IncludedLocal-only OSS contribution command center. Auto-refreshes the user's in-flight PR and issue state on invoke so conversations start with full context — no need to brief Claude on what's in flight. Helps the user find issues to contribute to on GitHub, builds per-repo dossiers of what each upstream expects (CLA, DCO, branch convention, AI policy, draft-first, review bots, issue templates), runs deterministic gates before any external action so AI-assisted contributions don't reach maintainers as slop. State is markdown-only: candidate files at ~/.contribute-system/candidates/, repo dossiers at ~/.contribute-system/research/, append-only event log at ~/.contribute-system/log.jsonl. No database, no cloud calls. Use when the user asks about their PRs / issues / contributions, wants to find new work to take on, claim an issue, build/refresh a repo's dossier, or draft a Design Issue or PR. Trigger with "/contribute", "what's my PR status", "find a contribution", "claim issue X", "draft a Design Issue for Y", "refresh dossier for Z".
architectural-analysis
IncludedUser-triggered deep architectural analysis of a codebase or scoped subtree across eight modes — information architecture, data flow, integration points, UI surfaces, interaction patterns, data model, control flow, and failure modes. This skill should be used when the user asks to "diagram this codebase," "map the architecture," "show the data flow," "give me an ERD," "trace control flow," "find the integration points," "verify the layout pattern," "audit the UX architecture," or any similar request whose primary deliverable is mermaid diagrams plus cited reports under docs/architecture/. Dispatches haiku/sonnet sub-agents in parallel for per-mode exploration, then verifies every citation mechanically before any node lands in a diagram. Not for one-off prose explanations of code (use code-explanation) or for high-level system design from scratch (use system-design).
mcp
IncludedModel Context Protocol (MCP) server development and tool management. Languages: Python, TypeScript. Capabilities: build MCP servers, integrate external APIs, discover/execute MCP tools, manage multi-server configs, design agent-centric tools. Actions: create, build, integrate, discover, execute, configure MCP servers/tools. Keywords: MCP, Model Context Protocol, MCP server, MCP tool, stdio transport, SSE transport, tool discovery, resource provider, prompt template, external API integration, Gemini CLI MCP, Claude MCP, agent tools, tool execution, server config. Use when: building MCP servers, integrating external APIs as MCP tools, discovering available MCP tools, executing MCP capabilities, configuring multi-server setups, designing tools for AI agents.
react-native-skia
IncludedDesign, build, debug, and optimise high-polish animated graphics in React Native or Expo using @shopify/react-native-skia, Reanimated, and Gesture Handler. Use when the user wants canvas-driven UI, shaders, paths, rich text, image filters, sprite fields, Skottie, video frames, snapshots, web CanvasKit setup, or performance tuning for custom motion-heavy elements such as loaders, hero art, cards, charts, progress indicators, particle systems, or gesture-driven surfaces. Also use when the user asks for fluid, glow, glass, blob, parallax, 60fps/120fps, or GPU-friendly animated effects in React Native, even if they do not explicitly say "Skia". Do not use for ordinary form/layout work with standard views.
plaid
IncludedProduct Led AI Development — guides founders from idea to launched product. Six capabilities: Idea (discover a product idea), Validate (pressure-test the idea against fatal flaws, problem reality, competition, and 2-week MVP feasibility), Plan (vision intake + document generation), Design (translate image references into a design.md spec), Launch (go-to-market strategy), and Build (roadmap execution). Use when someone says "PLAID", "plaid idea", "help me find an idea", "product idea", "idea from my business", "idea from my expertise", "plaid validate", "validate my idea", "pressure-test", "is this idea good", "find fatal flaws", "validate the problem", "plan a product", "define my vision", "generate a PRD", "product strategy", "plaid design", "design from image", "translate image to design", "create design.md", "extract design tokens", "plaid launch", "go-to-market", "launch plan", "GTM strategy", "launch playbook", "plaid build", "build the app", "start building", or "execute the roadmap".
nextjs-framer-motion-animations
IncludedAdds production-safe Motion for React or Framer Motion animations to Next.js apps, including reveal, hover and tap micro-interactions, whileInView, stagger, AnimatePresence, layout and layoutId transitions, reorder, scroll-linked UI, and lightweight route-content transitions. Use when the user asks to add, refactor, or debug Motion or Framer Motion in App Router or Pages Router codebases, especially around server/client boundaries, reduced motion, LazyMotion, bundle size, hydration, or route transitions. Avoid for GSAP-style timelines, WebGL or 3D scenes, heavy scroll storytelling, or CSS-only effects unless Motion is explicitly requested.