frontend
Frontend
This file is a router, not a rulebook. The rules live in four rulesets under references/, and reading them is the work, not the preamble to it. Before touching any file, name the references the request routes to and the one reason each is needed, then read exactly those. Declaring the set first is what makes the choice reviewable: a reference you never named is one you decided to skip, and a reference you named but never opened is a gap you still owe. Freestyling past the routed set produces the generic AI-slop output this skill exists to prevent.
The bar is not clean-and-correct — it is work a senior designer at Linear, Stripe, or Supabase would ship. Correct-but-flat is a failure, not a finish. Protect the surface as hard as you protect the build: design is a first-class deliverable, not a one-shot decision you lock and walk away from.
Phase 0 — Route (before any UI work)
| Request involves… | Read |
|---|---|
| ANY UI implementation, styling, redesign, mockup, or visual decision | references/design/README.md FIRST. It enforces two mandatory gates — the Design System Gate (a DESIGN.md must exist before any component is written) and the React Dev Tooling Gate (react-grab / react-scan / react-doctor installed by default) — then routes to the taste and brand references below. |
| Spatial structure — app shells, scroll ownership, "what goes where", "this layout breaks at X" | ALSO references/design/layout-skill.md for the mechanics, then references/design/stylegallery.md to fetch a named pattern contract for that exact spatial problem. Both stack on the style skill and add no visual direction. |
| Interaction or motion work — micro-interactions, animated components, transitions, gestures, hover/press/state feedback, "make it feel alive" | ALSO references/design/interaction-skill.md. The beui.dev catalog is the mandatory interaction reference: find the nearest pattern, read its real source through the file's curl recipe, and adapt the mechanism to DESIGN.md motion tokens. It stacks on the routed style skill — never replaces it. |
| Writing or modifying frontend code, OR auditing performance / SEO / accessibility / quality | ALSO references/perfection/README.md. Lighthouse 100 in every category, measured on real Playwright Chromium (never the lighthouse CLI), achieved through architecture — never by dropping animations or hiding content. |
| Looking up a concrete style, palette, font pairing, chart type, landing structure, or UX guideline — or generating a design system from keywords | references/ui-ux-db/README.md. A searchable CSV database with a CLI: a lookup tool, not a posture. design stays the source of truth for taste and the DESIGN.md contract. |
ANY implementation or redesign that creates or updates DESIGN.md — plus explicit operating-layer asks (personas, critique, debt, handoff, synthetic user testing) |
references/designpowers/README.md + lane-c-review.md. lane-c is the Phase Final flatness/critique reviewer and fills the accessibility-constraint and accepted-debt sections DESIGN.md requires. Load other lanes only when their phase applies. |
For implementation work, design + perfection load together. Beauty with a 2 MB bundle fails; Lighthouse 100 that looks like AI slop fails. Both win or neither does.