designmind

designmind

Local design knowledge as an MCP server and CLI: principles, UI patterns, checklists, design-system tokens, brand and content systems, research methods, metrics frameworks, and the GOV.UK Service Standard — all served from a curated catalogue that ships with the package. No network, no API key, no state.

designmind is a labelled core subset (20 tools) rebuilt from the public tool spec of a 111-tool design-knowledge server. The tools that audit live sites, grab assets, run a taste engine or a creative studio, maintain a decision graph, or run generation jobs are intentionally not reproduced; what is here is the read-only knowledge core.

What the catalogue contains

Original prose written for this rebuild, covering:

• Principles — Nielsen's ten heuristics, Laws of UX (Fitts, Hick, Jakob, Miller, Doherty, Von Restorff, Peak-End), Gestalt principles, WCAG AA basics (contrast, focus, labels, not colour alone), and typography, colour-role and spacing-scale rules.
• UI patterns and checklists — dashboards, forms, navigation, onboarding, search, checkout, empty states, modals, tables and settings, each with guidance and pitfalls.
• Design systems — token sets for Material, Carbon, Polaris, Atlassian and GOV.UK, which can be merged with compose_system (later sources win; every conflict is listed, never hidden).
• Brand and content systems — brand guidance plus voice and tone systems for GOV.UK, Polaris, Atlassian and conversational UI, content principles, and content patterns (error messages, empty states, confirmations, help text, notifications, labels).
• Strategy and methods — business strategy topics, the D4D (Discover, Define, Develop, Deliver) framework with templates, research methods, HEART / AARRR / North Star / RICE / OKR, and service patterns with the 14-point GOV.UK Service Standard.

Coverage differs from the original server's catalogue — this is a fresh local curation, not a copy of its content.

Install and run

npx -y @reneturcios/designmind mcp        # stdio MCP server
npx -y @reneturcios/designmind get_pattern form
docker run -i ghcr.io/cloudcorprecords/designmind          # MCP via container
docker run --rm ghcr.io/cloudcorprecords/designmind get_checklist form

MCP client config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "designmind": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@reneturcios/designmind", "mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Tools

Tool	Arguments	Purpose
get_principles	context	Principles relevant to a context
get_pattern	ui_type	UI pattern guidance
get_business_strategy	topic?	Business strategy guidance
evaluate_design	description, compact?	Score a design description against the principles catalogue — scores, matching principles and violations; no screenshots
search_knowledge	query	Search the whole catalogue
get_checklist	ui_type	A pre-ship checklist
get_d4d_framework	template?	Discover / Define / Develop / Deliver
list_design_systems	—	Catalogue design systems
get_design_system	name	One system's token set
compose_system	sources[]	Merge token sets; later wins, conflicts listed
get_brand_system	brand	Brand guidance for a named brand
get_content_system	brand	Voice and tone system for a named brand
get_content_principles	topic?	Content design principles
get_content_pattern	pattern_type	A content pattern (errors, empty states, …)
get_research_method	method_type	A UX research method, with steps
get_metrics_framework	framework	HEART, AARRR, North Star, RICE or OKR
get_service_pattern	pattern	A service design pattern
get_service_standard	—	The GOV.UK Service Standard, 14 points
get_brand_principles	topic?	Brand principles
get_brand_trends	—	Curated brand design trends

Unknown names (a system, brand, framework, pattern…) return an error listing the names that do exist, rather than a guess. The CLI exposes the same twenty operations as subcommands; run designmind with no arguments for the full usage list.

Development

npm install
npm run build   # tsc -> dist/
npm test        # node test runner, local only
npm run dev     # run the CLI from source

License

MIT — Copyright (c) 2026 Rene Turcios.