Taste

This excellent Agent Skill was contributed by a community member, Leon Lin.

Leonxlnx / taste-skill Star Portable Agent Skills that upgrade AI-built interfaces: stronger layout, typography, motion, and spacing Markdown Leonxlnx/taste-skill

Most AI-generated interfaces converge on the same look: oversaturated purple gradients, centered three-column cards, Inter font, fabricated statistics. The taste-design skill generates design systems that explicitly ban these patterns and enforce premium standards.

When to use taste-design

Skill	What it does	Philosophy
extract-design-md	Reverse-engineers tokens from source code	Descriptive — documents what exists
design-md	Extracts tokens from existing Stitch screens	Descriptive — documents what exists
taste-design	Generates a design system from a concept	Prescriptive — enforces premium standards

Use taste-design when starting fresh and you want a design system that stands above the AI-generated average.

Generate a premium DESIGN.md

The output includes visual atmosphere calibrated on the taste spectrum, strict anti-pattern rules, calibrated color science, opinionated typography, and spring-physics motion specifications.

Color calibration

Colors use HSL with intentionally restrained saturation. This reflects a principle from print design: sophisticated palettes use low-saturation colors for large surfaces and reserve high saturation for small, intentional accents.

Rules the skill enforces:

• Accent saturation stays below 80% — no oversaturated neon
• Pure black (#000000) is banned — use off-blacks like Zinc-950 (#18181B)
• Maximum one accent color — forces visual discipline

Adjusting the palette

Typography

The skill uses musical interval ratios for the type scale — the same harmonic relationships that make musical intervals sound natural:

Scale	Ratio	Character
Minor Third	1.200	Compact, information-dense
Major Third	1.250	Balanced, versatile
Perfect Fourth	1.333	Generous, editorial
Golden Ratio	1.618	Dramatic, high-impact

Font pairing rules:

• Inter is banned in premium contexts — too ubiquitous
• Recommended sans-serif: Geist, Outfit, Cabinet Grotesk, Satoshi
• Recommended modern serif: Fraunces, Gambarino, Editorial New
• Dashboard constraint: sans-serif + monospace only (Geist + Geist Mono)

Spatial rhythm

Every margin, padding, and gap is a multiple of the base unit (typically 4px or 8px). This creates spatial relationships the eye perceives as orderly even when asymmetric.

Adjusting density

The taste spectrum ranges from 1 (airy) to 10 (cockpit-dense):

Higher density triggers monospace numbers for alignment, border-top dividers instead of cards, tighter spacing ratios, and flat surfaces distinguished by typography rather than shadow.

The taste scoring rubric

Evaluate your DESIGN.md across four dimensions. A premium design scores 7+ across all four:

Dimension	What it measures
Color Sophistication	Palette restraint, saturation discipline, contrast intentionality
Typographic Craft	Font distinctiveness, scale harmony, weight hierarchy
Spatial Coherence	Base unit consistency, rhythm, responsive scaling
Visual Hierarchy	Clear primary/secondary/tertiary levels, information architecture

If any dimension feels weak:

Anti-pattern checklist

Before finalizing, verify these are absent:

• ❌ No emojis in the design
• ❌ No Inter font
• ❌ No pure black (#000000)
• ❌ No neon outer glow shadows
• ❌ No 3-column equal card layouts
• ❌ No fabricated metrics (“99.98% UPTIME”, “124ms AVG. RESPONSE”)
• ❌ No AI copywriting clichés (“Elevate”, “Seamless”, “Unleash”)
• ❌ No filler UI text (“Scroll to explore”, bouncing chevrons)
• ❌ No LABEL // YEAR formatting patterns