Open Design

Open Design is an Apache-2.0, local-first design studio that positions itself as an open-source alternative to Anthropic’s Claude Design. Instead of bundling one proprietary model, it turns the coding-agent CLI already on a user’s machine into the design engine. The daemon scans for tools such as Claude Code, Codex CLI, Cursor Agent, Gemini CLI, OpenCode, Qwen Code, GitHub Copilot CLI, Hermes, Kimi, Kiro, Kilo, Mistral Vibe, DeepSeek TUI, and others, then routes design work through a skill-driven workflow.

The product is built around artifact generation, not chat for its own sake. A user starts with a request such as a landing page, pitch deck, mobile onboarding flow, dashboard, social carousel, email, PM spec, runbook, or invoice. Open Design locks the brief through an interactive question form, selects a visual direction, streams the agent’s todo plan, writes files into a real project folder, previews the result in a sandboxed iframe, and exports the artifact.

Top features

• Local daemon plus web UI: the web app talks to an Express/SQLite daemon that owns projects, conversations, tabs, saved templates, and files under .od/.
• Bring-your-own-agent runtime: supported CLIs are detected on PATH; if no CLI is installed, a BYOK proxy can route to Anthropic, OpenAI-compatible, Azure OpenAI, or Google Gemini endpoints.
• File-based skills: design workflows are stored as SKILL.md folders with assets and references, so teams can add or edit a skill instead of waiting for a vendor roadmap.
• Portable design systems: DESIGN.md systems carry color, type, spacing, motion, components, voice, brand rules, and anti-patterns into each artifact run.
• Discovery and critique loop: first-turn question forms, visual direction choices, TodoWrite planning, and five-dimensional self-critique reduce the usual “AI made a generic mockup” failure mode.
• Artifact preview and export: outputs render in a sandboxed iframe and can be downloaded as HTML, PDF, PPTX, ZIP, or Markdown depending on the skill.
• Claude Design import: exported Claude Design ZIP files can be parsed into a local Open Design project so another agent can keep editing the artifact.
• Media surfaces: image, video, audio, and HyperFrames-style HTML-to-MP4 workflows sit beside web and deck generation.
• MCP bridge: od mcp exposes Open Design project files and metadata to MCP-aware coding agents in a read-only interface.

Use cases

• Designers and founders can turn rough product ideas into visible landing pages, decks, social cards, and app screens without handing the whole workflow to a closed cloud tool.
• Product teams can use the same local project to generate PM specs, dashboards, runbooks, weekly updates, and branded artifacts.
• Developers can inspect and edit every prompt, skill, design token file, and generated project artifact on disk.
• Agencies can build reusable client-specific design systems and skills, then run them with whichever model or coding agent the engagement allows.
• Teams evaluating Claude Design can test a local, self-hostable path before committing sensitive brand work to a proprietary environment.