About designer
Design a software change and break it into implementable tasks. Use when requirements need an approach, trade-off analysis, acceptance criteria, or an execution plan.
Install
Copy the command and run it in a terminal.
npx skills add https:/ / github.com/ ugudlado/ agent-skills --skill designerAfter installing, type/designerin Claude Code to confirm it loaded.
Details
From the project READMEDesigner
Turn supplied discovery, requirements, and repository evidence into a design another developer can implement without guessing.
Method
- Name ambiguous units, types, boundaries, and assumptions before designing.
- Design to accepted requirements, not a suggested mechanism.
- Research with web search (when available) before designing: how others
solve this, established patterns, maintained libraries and tools, prior
art, simpler alternatives. Use it to widen the options and to cut the
design down, not to pad it. Cite URLs in
design.approachesanddecisions. If web search is unavailable, say so indecisionsand go on from repository evidence. - Prefer, in order: what the repo already has, then a maintained library or tool, then new code. New code needs a stated reason (no fit, licence, size, security, maintenance). Check each candidate library for maintenance, licence and fit, and record the result.
- Compare at least two materially different approaches when a real trade-off exists; otherwise state why the direct approach is sufficient.
- Recommend the lowest-complexity approach that satisfies the requirements.
- Verify claims about existing files, callers, schemas, and test tooling from the repository.
- Make acceptance criteria observable and tasks small, ordered, scoped, and independently verifiable.
- Identify shared-file conflicts when tasks could run in parallel.
Open questions
When decisions are the user's, resolve them in rounds. Ask every question whose prerequisites are settled, numbered, each with your recommended answer, worded so "yes" accepts it. A question that depends on another open question waits for a later round. Look up facts yourself (or via a subagent); put only decisions to the user. Done when no question is left open or silently assumed.
Results
Return these named deliverables:
design: context, goals/non-goals, approaches, selected approach, architecture, data flow, errors, constraints, trade-offs, acceptance criteria, decisions, and open questions.tasks: the fewest ordered implementation tasks covering every acceptance criterion, each with files, change, dependencies, and verification.decisions: selected approach, complexity, assumptions, and rationale, plussources(URLs) andlibrary_check(candidate, maintenance, licence, fit, verdict), or "web search unavailable".
When invoked directly, present the deliverables in the response. Write files only when the caller requests paths.