design-taste-frontend

What this skill does

# tasteskill: Anti-Slop Frontend Skill

> Landing pages, portfolios, and redesigns. Not dashboards, not data tables, not multi-step product UI.
> Every rule below is **contextual**. None of it fires automatically. First read the brief, then pull only what fits.

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## 0. BRIEF INFERENCE (Read the Room Before Anything Else)

Before touching code or tweaking dials, **infer what the user actually wants**. Most LLM design output is bad because the model jumps to a default aesthetic instead of reading the room.

### 0.A Read these signals first
1. **Page kind** - landing (SaaS / consumer / agency / event), portfolio (dev / designer / creative studio), redesign (preserve vs overhaul), editorial / blog.
2. **Vibe words** the user used - "minimalist", "calm", "Linear-style", "Awwwards", "brutalist", "premium consumer", "Apple-y", "playful", "serious B2B", "editorial", "agency-y", "glassy", "dark tech".
3. **Reference signals** - URLs they linked, screenshots they pasted, products they named, brands they're competing with.
4. **Audience** - B2B procurement panel vs. design-conscious consumer vs. recruiter scanning a portfolio. The audience picks the aesthetic, not your taste.
5. **Brand assets that already exist** - logo, color, type, photography. For redesigns, these are starting material, not optional input (see Section 11).
6. **Quiet constraints** - accessibility-first audiences, public-sector, regulated industries, trust-first commerce, kids' products. These constraints OVERRIDE aesthetic preference.

### 0.B Output a one-line "Design Read" before generating
Before any code, state in one line: **"Reading this as: \<page kind> for \<audience>, with a \<vibe> language, leaning toward \<design system or aesthetic family>."**

Example reads:
- *"Reading this as: B2B SaaS landing for technical buyers, with a Linear-style minimalist language, leaning toward Tailwind utilities + Geist + restrained motion."*
- *"Reading this as: solo designer portfolio for hiring managers, with an editorial / kinetic-type language, leaning toward native CSS + scroll-driven animation + custom typography."*
- *"Reading this as: redesign of a public-sector service site, with a trust-first language, leaning toward GOV.UK Frontend or USWDS."*

### 0.C If the brief is ambiguous, ask one question, do not guess
Ask exactly **one** clarifying question - never a multi-question dump - and only when the design read genuinely diverges. Example: *"Should this feel closer to Linear-clean or Awwwards-experimental?"*

If you can confidently infer from context, **do not ask**. Just declare the design read and proceed.

### 0.D Anti-Default Discipline
Do not default to: AI-purple gradients, centered hero over dark mesh, three equal feature cards, generic glassmorphism on everything, infinite-loop micro-animations everywhere, Inter + slate-900. These are the LLM defaults. Reach past them deliberately based on the design read.

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## 1. THE THREE DIALS (Core Configuration)

After the design read, set three dials. Every layout, motion, and density decision below is gated by these.

* **`DESIGN_VARIANCE: 8`** - 1 = Perfect Symmetry, 10 = Artsy Chaos
* **`MOTION_INTENSITY: 6`** - 1 = Static, 10 = Cinematic / Physics
* **`VISUAL_DENSITY: 4`** - 1 = Art Gallery / Airy, 10 = Cockpit / Packed Data

**Baseline:** `8 / 6 / 4`. Use these unless the design read overrides them. Do not ask the user to edit this file - overrides happen conversationally.

### 1.A Dial Inference (design read → dial values)
| Signal | VARIANCE | MOTION | DENSITY |
|---|---|---|---|
| "minimalist / clean / calm / editorial / Linear-style" | 5-6 | 3-4 | 2-3 |
| "premium consumer / Apple-y / luxury / brand" | 7-8 | 5-7 | 3-4 |
| "playful / wild / Dribbble / Awwwards / experimental / agency" | 9-10 | 8-10 | 3-4 |
| "landing page / portfolio / marketing site (default)" | 7-9 | 6-8 | 3-5 |
| "trust-first / public-sector / regulated / accessibility-critical" | 3-4 | 2-3 | 4-5 |
| "redesign - preserve" | match existing | +1 | match existing |
| "redesign - overhaul" | +2 | +2 | match existing |

### 1.B Use-Case Presets
| Use case | VARIANCE | MOTION | DENSITY |
|---|---|---|---|
| Landing (SaaS, mainstream) | 7 | 6 | 4 |
| Landing (Agency / creative) | 9 | 8 | 3 |
| Landing (Premium consumer) | 7 | 6 | 3 |
| Portfolio (Designer / studio) | 8 | 7 | 3 |
| Portfolio (Developer) | 6 | 5 | 4 |
| Editorial / Blog | 6 | 4 | 3 |
| Public-sector service | 3 | 2 | 5 |
| Redesign - preserve | match | match+1 | match |
| Redesign - overhaul | +2 | +2 | match |

### 1.C How the Dials Drive Output
Use these (or user-overridden values) as global variables. Cross-references throughout this document refer to these exact variable names - never invent aliases like `LAYOUT_VARIANCE` or `ANIM_LEVEL`.

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## 2. BRIEF → DESIGN SYSTEM MAP

Once you have the design read (Section 0) and dials (Section 1), pick the right foundation. Do not invent CSS for things that have an official package. Do not pretend an aesthetic trend is an official system.

### 2.A When to reach for a real design system (use official packages)
| Brief reads as… | Reach for | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft / enterprise SaaS / dashboards | `@fluentui/react-components` or `@fluentui/web-components` | Official Fluent UI, Microsoft tokens, accessibility done |
| Google-ish UI, Material-flavored product | `@material/web` + Material 3 tokens | Official, theme-able via Material Theming |
| IBM-style B2B / enterprise analytics | `@carbon/react` + `@carbon/styles` | Official Carbon, mature data-density patterns |
| Shopify app surfaces | `polaris.js` web components / Polaris React | Required for Shopify admin UI |
| Atlassian / Jira-style product | `@atlaskit/*` + `@atlaskit/tokens` | Official Atlassian DS |
| GitHub-style devtool / community page | `@primer/css` or `@primer/react-brand` | Official Primer; Brand variant for marketing |
| Public-sector UK service | `govuk-frontend` | Legally / regulatorily expected |
| US public-sector / trust-first | `uswds` | Same |
| Fast local-business / agency MVP | Bootstrap 5.3 | Boring, fast, works |
| Modern accessible React foundation | `@radix-ui/themes` | Primitives + polished theme |
| Modern SaaS where you own the components | shadcn/ui (`npx shadcn@latest add ...`) | You own the code, easy to customise; never ship default state |
| Tailwind-based modern SaaS / AI marketing | Tailwind v4 utilities + `dark:` variant | Default for indie + small team builds |

**Honesty rule:** if the brief reads as one of the systems above, install and use the **official** package. Do not recreate its CSS by hand. Do not import a system's tokens but then override 90% of them.

**One system per project.** Do not mix Fluent React with Carbon in the same tree. Do not import shadcn/ui components into a Material 3 app.

### 2.B When the brief is an aesthetic, not a system
For these directions, there is **no single official package**. Build with native CSS + Tailwind + a maintained component library. Be honest in code comments about what is borrowed inspiration vs. official material.

| Aesthetic | Honest implementation |
|---|---|
| Glassmorphism / "frosted glass" | `backdrop-filter`, layered borders, highlight overlays. Provide solid-fill fallback for `prefers-reduced-transparency`. |
| Bento (Apple-style tile grids) | CSS Grid with mixed cell sizes. No single library owns this. |
| Brutalism | Native CSS, monospace, raw borders. No library. |
| Editorial / magazine | Serif type, asymmetric grid, generous whitespace. No library. |
| Dark tech / hacker | Mono + accent neon, terminal motifs. No library. |
| Aurora / mesh gradients | SVG or layered radial gradients. No library. |
| Kinetic typography | Native CSS animations, scroll-driven animations, GSAP for hijacks. No library. |
| **Apple Liquid Glass** | Apple documents this for Apple platforms only. **There is no official `liquid-glass.css`.** Web implementations are approximations using `backdrop-filter` + layered