Run Claude Design Locally as an Agent Skill with baoyu-design
Run Claude Design locally as an Agent Skill for Cursor, Claude Code, and more. Produce polished UI mockups, prototypes, and wireframes as self-contained HTML.
What Is baoyu-design?
baoyu-design packages the design engine behind claude.ai/design into a portable Agent Skill. Instead of relying on Anthropic's hosted website, you drop this skill into your local coding agent — Cursor, Claude Code, Codex, or any of 70+ compatible agents — and get the same high-quality design output right inside your editor.
The result: polished UI mockups, interactive prototypes, wireframes, landing pages, dashboards, mobile apps, and slide decks — all produced as self-contained HTML files that live in your repository. No website, no separate subscription, no upload step.
Why Run It Locally?
Freedom from the Website
You get the vast majority of claude.ai/design's capabilities without ever leaving your editor. Same methodology, same craft standards, same output format — but entirely local.
Best with Opus 4.8
The skill is a long, demanding design brief. The stronger the model, the better the result. Pair it with Claude Opus 4.8 for the best output, though it still works well on other capable models.
Iterate by Pointing, Not Describing
Because the deliverable is plain HTML served on localhost, you can lean on your agent's built-in browser preview and element-annotation tools (Cursor Browser / DevTools, Claude Preview, or Codex Browser). Point at a button in the live preview, say what you want changed, and the agent edits the underlying source — a tight, visual second-pass editing loop that's hard to get on a website.
Everything Is Yours
Output lands in designs/<project>/ as self-contained HTML you can version, fork, export, or ship. No vendor lock-in.
What It Can Make
The skill drives a full design process — clarifying questions → gathering design context → producing one or more HTML deliverables → previewing and verifying. It ships 24 built-in skills and a set of ready-made component scaffolds.
| Area | Built-in Skills |
|---|---|
| Core design | Hi-fi design · Interactive prototype · Wireframe · Frontend aesthetic direction |
| Decks | Make a deck · Speaker notes |
| Mobile & motion | Mobile prototype · Animated video · Sound effects |
| Design systems | Create design system · Design Components (.dc.html) · Make tweakable |
| Export & handoff | Standalone HTML · PDF · PPTX (editable) · PPTX (screenshots) · Send to Figma · Send to Canva · Handoff to Claude Code |
| AI assets & integration | Gemini image generation · Call Claude from prototypes · Read PDF |
Starter components (in starter-components/) save the agent from hand-rolling the basics: iOS / Android / macOS / browser frames, a pan-zoom design canvas, a slide-deck stage, a timeline animation engine, a tweaks panel, and a fillable image slot.
How It Works
The skill is plain Markdown plus a few JSX/JS scaffolds — no build step, no runtime.
skills/baoyu-design/
├── SKILL.md # Entry point — orchestrates the whole flow
├── system-prompt.md # The design methodology & craft standards (source of truth)
├── references/
│ ├── claude.md # Tool map for Claude Code
│ ├── cursor.md # Tool map for Cursor
│ └── codex.md # Tool map for Codex Agent
├── built-in-skills/ # 24 specialized prompts (decks, mobile, export, …)
└── starter-components/ # Device frames, deck stage, canvas, animation engine, …
When you ask for a design, the agent reads SKILL.md, loads the core methodology from system-prompt.md, detects whether it's running in Cursor, Claude Code, Codex Agent, or a generic file-capable harness, and reads the matching reference doc when one exists. It then pulls in only the built-in skill(s) the task needs. The split keeps craft rules harness-independent while each environment resolves its own tools for asking questions, previewing, screenshotting, and verifying.
Quick Start
Prerequisites
- A local agent — Cursor, Claude Code, Codex, or any of the 70+ agents the installer supports (Cline, Roo Code, GitHub Copilot…). Cursor, Claude Code, and Codex have first-class tool references inside the skill.
- Claude Opus 4.8 selected as the model, for best results.
- Node.js (to run the
npxinstaller below). Python 3 is also handy for the local preview server.
Install
Recommended — the skills CLI. npx skills (from Vercel Labs) reads this repo, finds skills/baoyu-design/, and drops it into the right folder for whatever agent it detects:
# Install into the current project (auto-detects your agent)
npx skills add JimLiu/baoyu-design
# …or install globally, for every project
npx skills add JimLiu/baoyu-design -g
# Target a specific agent explicitly
npx skills add JimLiu/baoyu-design --agent claude-code
npx skills add JimLiu/baoyu-design --agent cursor
npx skills add JimLiu/baoyu-design --agent codex
# Just list what's in the repo first
npx skills add JimLiu/baoyu-design --list
It installs to .claude/skills/ for Claude Code and .agents/skills/ for Cursor/Codex-style agents (add -g for the ~/-level user install).
Alternative — hand the repo URL to your agent. Don't want to install anything? Paste the URL into chat and let the agent fetch the skill itself:
Read https://github.com/JimLiu/baoyu-design and follow its skills/baoyu-design/SKILL.md to design a settings screen for a meditation app.
The agent clones or fetches the repo, loads SKILL.md, and proceeds — perfect for a one-off.
Use It
Once the skill is installed (or fetched), just describe a design task in plain language — it auto-activates from its description:
Design 3 hi-fi variations of a settings screen for a meditation app.
In Claude Code you can also trigger it explicitly with /baoyu-design; in Codex, mention $baoyu-design when skills are available. The agent asks a few clarifying questions, builds the HTML under designs/, and previews it over localhost. Point at any element in the live preview and say what to change — the agent edits the underlying source for a fast, visual second pass.
Preview Server
Deliverables are previewed over HTTP (multi-file prototypes won't load from file://). The agent normally starts this for you; to run it by hand:
python3 -m http.server 4311 --directory designs
# then open http://localhost:4311/<project>/<file>.html
Design Systems
Beyond one-off mockups, the skill can hold a whole project to a design system — a versioned bundle of a brand's tokens, fonts, components, and full UI kits. Systems live next to your projects under designs/: author one with the Create design system built-in skill, or drop in a pre-built one. Once a system exists, two flows let any project consume it.
Import an Existing Design System
When you start a design, the agent asks where to save it and which design system(s) to use — it discovers every system under designs/ and lists them, so you can pick none (free design), one, or several. Name one up front and it skips the menu:
Design a settings screen using the Fluent 2 design system.
For each system you choose, the agent syncs a self-contained, version-pinned copy into your project at _ds/<slug>/, wires its CSS and component bundle into the page, and records the binding in the project's _d_meta.json. That local copy is what keeps the project portable and reproducible — nothing reaches outside the folder, and re-running the import is how you pull updates later. Choose several systems and one becomes primary — it owns the overall look and wins any token collision, while the others lend specific components.
Use an Imported Design System
Once a system is bound it acts as a binding visual contract, not a loose suggestion: every screen is built from the system's real tokens, type, spacing, and components, and the agent won't invent off-system colors or styles. If the system ships starting points — ready-made screens or components — you can seed a new design from one instead of starting blank.
The binding travels with the project. Reopen it later and the agent reads _d_meta.json, reloads the system, and keeps designing in-style — no need to re-pick. From there you can refresh a system to pull updates, add another, swap which one is primary, or remove one entirely.
Example Prompts
- "Design 3 hi-fi variations of a pricing page using the brand in this screenshot."
- "Prototype a working onboarding flow — real state, transitions, form validation."
- "Make a 10-slide deck from this PRD for an engineering all-hands."
- "Wireframe a few layout ideas for a mobile expense-tracker home screen."
- "Recreate the composer UI from this codebase, then export it as standalone HTML."
- "Build a dashboard using our design system, starting from its analytics screen."
For best results, give it design context — a screenshot, a UI kit, a Figma link, or a codebase. Starting from real context is the single biggest lever on quality; the skill will ask for it if you don't provide it.
Credits & License
This project repackages Claude Design, the design skill by Anthropic that powers claude.ai/design, so it can run on local agents. It is an independent, community effort and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Anthropic.
Repackaged and maintained by Jim Liu 宝玉. Released under the MIT License.