ywc-design-renew

Design Renew — De-Slop & Check

Announce at start: "I'm using the ywc-design-renew skill to renew the design and check it against AI-slop tells."

This skill takes an existing frontend surface that reads as generic or "AI-generated" and renews it into something distinctive, then verifies the result against an anti-slop audit. The user provides a target (component, page, or route) and design context (audience, use-case, brand tone); the skill produces either renewed code with before/after evidence (--mode renew, default) or a prioritized slop-audit report with a pass/fail gate (--mode check). It uses the impeccable skill as its design engine when installed, and a self-contained portable ruleset otherwise — so it works in any project or runtime.

Rationalization Defense

When tempted to bypass a rule, check this table first:

Excuse	Reality
"I can infer the design context from the codebase — skip the context step"	Code tells you what was built, not who it is for or how it should feel. Renewing without audience / use-case / brand tone produces generic output — the exact AI-slop you were asked to remove. Always confirm the three context inputs first.
"impeccable isn't installed, so I can't renew the design"	impeccable is an enhancement, not a hard dependency. The self-contained references/anti-slop-ruleset.md is the portable baseline — run it. Refusing to act because an optional skill is absent defeats the skill's portability purpose.
"Inter is banned, so I'll just switch to Fraunces / my next-favorite font"	Swapping to your second-favorite recreates the monoculture one font over. The whole reflex set is banned. Pick against 3 concrete brand words from a catalog, evaluating the font as a physical object.
"A colored border-left stripe / gradient heading adds visual flair"	Those are the top AI tells (Critical bans B1/B2). They never look intentional. Rewrite the element structure entirely — do not just recolor the stripe.
"Beauty is subjective — I can't audit design quality objectively"	Token inconsistency and the banned-pattern set are objective and grep-able. The AI Slop Test is the gate. Subjectivity is not a license to skip the audit.
"Renew means redesign everything from scratch"	Renewal changes aesthetic execution, not behavior or information architecture. Preserve working flows, routes, and IA; do not break functionality to chase a look.
"Default to dark mode with glowing accents — it looks polished"	That is the lazy reflex and itself a slop tell (B4). Theme is derived from audience and viewing context, not picked for cool factor.
"The code diff is enough — skip the before/after screenshot"	Design is visual. A diff hides layout shift, contrast regressions, and broken hover states. Capture both states when a live URL exists; this is the only proof the renewal helped.

Violating the letter of these rules is violating the spirit. A "renewal" that swaps one slop pattern for another, or skips the context gate, ships the same AI-generated feel under a new coat of paint.

Arguments

Parameter	Format	Example	Description
--mode	--mode renew|check	--mode check	renew (default): apply de-slop improvements. check: audit only, no edits, with a pass/fail gate.
--target	--target <path|route>	--target src/components/hero	Surface to renew or check. Required.
--url	--url <live-url>	--url http://localhost:3000	Live URL for before/after screenshots (Phase 1 + 4). Optional; degrades to code-only.
--fail-on	--fail-on critical|high|none	--fail-on high	check-mode gate threshold. Default critical (fail if any Critical slop finding).
--format	--format markdown|html	--format html	Report format for check mode. Default markdown. See ../references/html-output.md.

Workflow

Run the phases in order. --mode check stops after Phase 2.

Phase 0 — Capability & context gate

1. Detect impeccable. Set IMPECCABLE_AVAILABLE per references/impeccable-delegation.md. This decides the engine for every later phase.
2. Load prior learnings. If docs/review-learnings.md exists, run ywc-review-learnings --mode read scoped to the target's file glob and apply any design-polarity learnings (e.g. a project that prefers a specific font pairing, or has marked a pattern as a FALSE-POSITIVE).
3. Confirm design context (REQUIRED). You cannot infer this from code. Obtain audience, use-cases, and brand tone via the handshake in impeccable-delegation.md (read .impeccable.md / PRODUCT.md / DESIGN.md → else /impeccable teach → else ask the three questions inline). Do not proceed to renew without it.

Phase 1 — Baseline capture

• Read the target's component/style/token files; note the current fonts, color values, spacing scale, and layout structure.
• If --url is set, capture before screenshots at 320 / 768 / 1024 / 1440 via Chrome DevTools MCP (new_page → resize_page → take_screenshot).
• This baseline is the comparison anchor for Phase 4 — do not skip it.

Phase 2 — Check (anti-slop audit)

Detect every slop tell against the target:

• With impeccable: delegate to /impeccable audit <scope> (or npx impeccable detect <path> for the CLI-only path).
• Self-contained: grep the Part B / Part C detection signals in references/anti-slop-ruleset.md, then apply the AI Slop Test and Part E required-qualities count as a judgment pass.

Classify each finding with the scoring map (Critical / High / Medium / Low).

If --mode check: emit the audit report (see Output Format), apply the --fail-on gate, and stop. Do not edit code in check mode.

Phase 3 — Renew (apply improvements)

1. Commit to a bold direction. From the Phase 0 context, choose one clear aesthetic point of view (editorial, brutalist, refined-minimal, retro- futuristic, etc.). Intentionality over intensity — both maximal and minimal work if executed precisely. Do not converge on the same direction across projects.
2. Apply the engine.
   • With impeccable: /impeccable craft <feature> for a new surface, or /impeccable polish <scope> to refine the existing one.
   • Self-contained: apply Part D DO rules — modular type scale + deliberate font pairing, OKLCH palette tinted to the brand hue, 4pt spacing with varied rhythm, asymmetric/grid-breaking composition, motion on transform/opacity — while removing every Part B / Part C tell found in Phase 2.
3. Preserve behavior. Keep routes, IA, data flow, and accessibility semantics intact. Renewal is aesthetic execution, not a functional rewrite.

Phase 4 — Verify

• Re-audit. Re-run Phase 2 detection; confirm Critical/High findings are resolved and no new tell was introduced.
• Before/after. If --url is set, capture after screenshots at the same breakpoints and present them paired with the Phase 1 baseline.
• Hand off the other axis. Renewal covers aesthetics only. Recommend ywc-ui-ux-review for the usability / IA / WCAG axis — do not claim those here.

Phase 5 — Capture learnings (optional)

If the user accepted or rejected a specific design choice during renewal (a font pairing, a palette, a "we never use X here"), offer to persist it via ywc-review-learnings --mode update --source review so future renewals on this repo start sharper. Never write learnings without the user's confirmation.

Banned Output Patterns

Never emit these in renewed code — they are the slop tells the skill exists to remove. Full detection signals in references/anti-slop-ruleset.md.

Banned pattern	Replace with
border-left/right > 1px accent stripe (incl. CSS vars)	Full border, background tint, leading number/icon, or no indicator
background-clip: text + any gradient (gradient text)	Single solid color; emphasize with weight/size
cyan-on-dark / purple→blue gradient / neon-on-dark palette	OKLCH palette derived from the brand hue
Pure #000 / #fff on large surfaces	Tinted near-black / near-white toward brand hue
Inter / Roboto / system stack / the reflex font set	A font chosen against 3 brand words from a catalog
Animating width/height/top/left/margin/padding	Animate transform / opacity only
Bounce / elastic / back easing	Exponential ease-out
Nested cards / uniform icon-heading-text card grid	Flattened hierarchy; varied, grid-breaking composition

Output Format

check mode — Markdown audit report (default path claudedocs/design-slop-audit-{YYYY-MM-DD}.md):

# Design Slop Audit — <target>
## Verdict: FAIL (2 Critical) — gate: --fail-on critical
## Summary: 2 Critical · 3 High · 1 Medium · 0 Low

### Critical
- [B2 Gradient text] src/components/Hero.tsx:42
  Observed: `background-clip: text` on the H1 with a purple→blue gradient.
  Why: top-3 AI tell — decorative, not meaningful.
  Fix: solid `oklch(...)` fill; emphasize with weight.

### High
- [C1 Overused font] src/styles/tokens.css:7 — `--font-display: Inter`.
  Fix: pair a display face chosen against the brand words "<w1> <w2> <w3>".
...
### Required-qualities check (Part E): 2 / 4 minimum — BELOW BAR

renew mode — renewal report:

# Design Renewal — <target>
## Direction: <chosen aesthetic POV> — rationale: <1 line from context>
## Engine: impeccable polish | self-contained ruleset
## Slop findings resolved: 2 Critical, 3 High (before → after table)
## Files changed: <list>
## Verification: re-audit 0 Critical · before/after screenshots @ 320/768/1024/1440
## Next: ywc-ui-ux-review for the usability / IA / WCAG axis

Validation

Before declaring the task complete, verify:

• [ ] Design context (audience / use-cases / brand tone) was confirmed, not inferred
• [ ] IMPECCABLE_AVAILABLE was detected and the correct engine path was used
• [ ] (renew) Every Phase 2 Critical/High finding is resolved in the re-audit
• [ ] (renew) No new Banned Output Pattern was introduced
• [ ] (renew) Behavior / routes / IA / a11y semantics are unchanged
• [ ] (check) Every finding has an ID, file:line, observed, why, and fix
• [ ] (check) The --fail-on gate verdict is stated explicitly
• [ ] Before/after screenshots captured when --url was provided

Common Mistakes

• Skipping the context gate because "the codebase makes it obvious" — it does not. Generic context is the root cause of generic output. Confirm the three inputs every time.
• Treating impeccable as required — the skill must degrade gracefully to the self-contained ruleset. Never refuse to act because impeccable is absent.
• Font monoculture by reflex — banning Inter and reaching for Fraunces is the same failure one step over. Use the brand-words procedure.
• Claiming the usability axis — this skill audits aesthetics/slop, not WCAG or IA. Hand that to ywc-ui-ux-review rather than over-claiming coverage.
• Renewing without a before baseline — without Phase 1 capture there is no evidence the renewal improved anything.

Integration

• Upstream: N/A — standalone; optionally consumes .impeccable.md / PRODUCT.md / DESIGN.md and docs/review-learnings.md when present.
• Downstream: ywc-ui-ux-review (usability / IA / WCAG verification on the renewed surface); ywc-review-learnings (persist accepted design preferences).
• Pairs with: the impeccable skill (design engine when installed) and the frontend-design skill (alternative generative engine).