About design-system-compliance
A Reticle skill for checking a running UI against the design tokens declared by its project. It inspects resolved browser styles and reports concrete element locations, rather than judging design quality.
Key features
- 01Compare computed colors with design tokens
- 02Report token count and active theme scope
- 03Inspect occlusion, size, opacity, and cursor
- 04List running and completed animations
- 05Return element source locations
Use cases
- 01Find colors that do not match declared tokens
- 02Check whether a theme is active during inspection
- 03Review control visibility and usability
- 04Verify that motion runs with expected timing
MCP support
Reticle exposes the live-page inspection and animation capabilities used by this skill through MCP tools.
Install
Copy the command and run it in a terminal.
npx skills add https:/After installing, type/design-system-compliancein Claude Code to confirm it loaded.
Details
From the project READMEDoes the rendered UI actually use the design system?
Reading the source tells you what the component asks for. It cannot tell you what the browser resolved: a token overridden three layers up, a hardcoded #3b82f6 that happens to look close, a dark-theme scope that never applied. That answer only exists in the running page.
Reticle reads computed styles in the live app and compares them against the project's tokens. Not set up? Follow the reticle skill: it installs Reticle, asks the user before init changes the app's files, and proves one flow.
The check
reticle_look({ action: "page", sessionId, mode: "interactive" })
reticle_look({ action: "element", sessionId, ref })
inspect returns a theme report per element:
| Field | What it tells you |
|---|---|
offTheme | the headline. True when a set, opaque color matches no token in the palette: a violation worth fixing |
colorTokens / backgroundTokens | every token whose resolved value is this color. Empty means off-palette |
colorToken / backgroundToken | the unambiguous match, or null when several tokens share the color. null here is an abstention, not a violation: read the plural field |
tokenCount | how many tokens resolved under the active theme. 0 means the app declares no palette, and offTheme is never asserted: report that rather than a clean bill of health |
themeScope | the theme active at capture (e.g. .dark), so two inspects taken minutes apart are comparable at all |
Read tokenCount first. Zero tokens means there is nothing to comply with, and every "pass" below it is vacuous.
Beyond color: is the control actually usable?
The same call answers the questions a screenshot cannot:
occluded: covered by an overlay. It renders, and no user can click it.box:0×0is present-but-invisible, the most common "it's there, I can see it in the DOM" bug.styles.opacity/styles.cursor: the difference between disabled-looking and disabled.source: { file, line }: where to go and fix it.
A design review that only compares colors passes a button nobody can press.
Animations
reticle_run({ tool: "reticle_animations", args: { sessionId } })
Returns running and recently completed animations with their targets and timing. Two things worth checking after any motion work: an animation you added that never appears here did not run, and one whose duration does not match the token is off-spec. Both look identical in a screenshot.
Report violations as locations, not opinions
For each element that failed, give the file:line from inspect and the specific fact: "background #3b82f6 matches no token; the palette has --color-primary at #2563eb". A design-review comment without a location is a task someone else has to redo.
What this is not
This checks compliance with the tokens the project declares. It is not an opinion about whether the design is good, and it is not an accessibility audit. Contrast ratios, focus order and screen-reader semantics are a different job, and claiming them here would be a false green of exactly the kind this repo exists to prevent.
Everything else, one page at a time: curl https://docs.reticle.sh/llms.txt. Design token check missing something you needed? reticle_session { action: "feedback" } with kind: "gap".