pbakaus_impeccable/skill/SKILL.md

name, description, argument-hint, user-invocable, allowed-tools, license

name	description	argument-hint	user-invocable	allowed-tools	license
impeccable	Use when the user wants to design, redesign, shape, critique, audit, polish, clarify, distill, harden, optimize, adapt, animate, colorize, extract, or otherwise improve a frontend interface. Covers websites, landing pages, dashboards, product UI, app shells, components, forms, settings, onboarding, and empty states. Handles UX review, visual hierarchy, information architecture, cognitive load, accessibility, performance, responsive behavior, theming, anti-patterns, typography, fonts, spacing, layout, alignment, color, motion, micro-interactions, UX copy, error states, edge cases, i18n, and reusable design systems or tokens. Also use for bland designs that need to become bolder or more delightful, loud designs that should become quieter, live browser iteration on UI elements, or ambitious visual effects that should feel technically extraordinary. Not for backend-only or non-UI tasks.	[{{command_hint}}] [target]	true	Bash(npx impeccable *)	Apache 2.0

Designs and iterates production-grade frontend interfaces. Real working code, committed design choices, exceptional craft.

Setup

You MUST do these steps before proceeding:

1. Run node {{scripts_path}}/context.mjs once per session. If you've already seen its output in this conversation, do not re-run it. The script either prints the project's PRODUCT.md (and DESIGN.md when present) as a markdown block, or tells you it's missing. Follow whatever it prints. If it reports NO_PRODUCT_MD, stop and follow reference/teach.md before doing anything else.
2. Familiarize yourself with any existing design system, conventions, and components in the code. Don't reinvent the wheel; use what's there when it works, branch out when the UX wins.
3. Read the matching register reference. This is non-optional; skipping it produces generic output. If the project is marketing, a landing page, a campaign, long-form content, or a portfolio (design IS the product), read reference/brand.md. If it is app UI, admin, a dashboard, or a tool (design SERVES the product), read reference/product.md. Pick by first match: (1) task cue ("landing page" vs "dashboard"); (2) surface in focus (the page, file, or route being worked on); (3) register field in PRODUCT.md.
4. If the user invoked a sub-command (craft, shape, audit, ...), load its reference too.

Shared design laws

Apply to every design, both registers. Match implementation complexity to the aesthetic vision: maximalism needs elaborate code, minimalism needs precision. Interpret creatively. Vary across projects; never converge on the same choices. {{model}} is capable of extraordinary work. Don't hold back.

Color

• Use OKLCH. Reduce chroma as lightness approaches 0 or 100; high chroma at extremes looks garish.
• The cream / sand / beige body bg is the saturated AI default of 2026. The whole warm-neutral band (OKLCH L 0.84-0.97, C < 0.06, hue 40-100) reads as cream/sand/paper/parchment regardless of what you call it. Token names like --paper, --cream, --sand, --bone, --flour, --linen, --parchment, --wheat, --biscuit, --ivory are tells in themselves. If the brief is "warm, traditional, family-coastal-Italian" or "magazine-warm" or "editorial-restraint", DO NOT translate that into a near-white warm-tinted bg; that's the AI move. Pick: (a) a saturated brand color as the body (terracotta, oxblood, deep ochre, near-black), (b) a true off-white at chroma 0 (or chroma toward the brand's own hue, not toward warmth-by-default), or (c) a darker mid-tone tinted neutral that's clearly the brand's own. "Warmth" in the brand is carried by accent + typography + imagery, not by body bg.
• Pick a color strategy before picking colors. Four steps on the commitment axis:
  • Restrained: tinted neutrals + one accent ≤10%. Product default; brand minimalism.
  • Committed: one saturated color carries 30–60% of the surface. Brand default for identity-driven pages.
  • Full palette: 3–4 named roles, each used deliberately. Brand campaigns; product data viz.
  • Drenched: the surface IS the color. Brand heroes, campaign pages.
• The "one accent ≤10%" rule is Restrained only. Committed / Full palette / Drenched exceed it on purpose. Don't collapse every design to Restrained by reflex.
• Verify contrast. Body text must hit ≥4.5:1 against its background; large text (≥18px or bold ≥14px) needs ≥3:1. The most common failure: muted gray body text on a tinted near-white. If the contrast is even close, bump the body color toward the ink end of the ramp; light gray "for elegance" is the single biggest reason AI designs feel hard to read.

Theme

Dark vs. light is never a default. Not dark "because tools look cool dark." Not light "to be safe."

Before choosing, write one sentence of physical scene: who uses this, where, under what ambient light, in what mood. If the sentence doesn't force the answer, it's not concrete enough. Add detail until it does.

"Observability dashboard" does not force an answer. "SRE glancing at incident severity on a 27-inch monitor at 2am in a dim room" does. Run the sentence, not the category.

Typography

• Cap body line length at 65–75ch.
• Hierarchy through scale + weight contrast (≥1.25 ratio between steps). Avoid flat scales.
• Cap font-family count at 3 (display + body + optional mono). More than 3 reads as indecision, not richness. One well-tuned family with weight contrast usually beats three competing typefaces.
• No all-caps body copy. Reserve uppercase for short labels (≤4 words), section eyebrows (used sparingly per the Absolute bans), and badges. Sentences in ALL CAPS are unreadable at body sizes.
• Hero / display heading ceiling: clamp() max ≤ 6rem (~96px). Above that the page is shouting, not designing.
• Display heading letter-spacing floor: ≥ -0.04em. Anything tighter and letters touch; cramped, not "designed".

Two hard typographic ceilings you currently miss: - Hero clamp() max ≤ 6rem. 8–11rem (128–176px) reads as comically loud, not bold. - Display letter-spacing ≥ -0.04em. Your default of -0.05 to -0.085em on display H1s makes the letters touch and reads as cramped. -0.02 to -0.03em is plenty for tight grotesque display; -0.04em is the floor.

Layout

• Vary spacing for rhythm. Same padding everywhere is monotony.
• Cards are the lazy answer. Use them only when they're truly the best affordance. Nested cards are always wrong.
• Don't wrap everything in a container. Most things don't need one.

Motion

• Don't animate CSS layout properties.
• Ease out with exponential curves (ease-out-quart / quint / expo). No bounce, no elastic.

**Gemini-specific defect: hard ban.** Never animate `` elements on hover. This includes any `transform` on `:hover` of an image, AND `.group:hover .group-hover\:scale` / `.group:hover .group-hover\:rotate` / `.group:hover .group-hover\:translate` patterns from Tailwind that animate a child image via a parent hover. This is your single most common motion tell; it adds no information (the image isn't an action target) and reads as "AI animated this because it could". If a card needs hover feedback, animate the card's background, border, or shadow. Never the image, never via the image's parent.

Absolute bans

Match-and-refuse. If you're about to write any of these, rewrite the element with different structure.

• Side-stripe borders. border-left or border-right greater than 1px as a colored accent on cards, list items, callouts, or alerts. Never intentional. Rewrite with full borders, background tints, leading numbers/icons, or nothing.
• Gradient text. background-clip: text combined with a gradient background. Decorative, never meaningful. Use a single solid color. Emphasis via weight or size.
• Glassmorphism as default. Blurs and glass cards used decoratively. Rare and purposeful, or nothing.
• The hero-metric template. Big number, small label, supporting stats, gradient accent. SaaS cliché.
• Identical card grids. Same-sized cards with icon + heading + text, repeated endlessly.
• Modal as first thought. Modals are usually laziness. Exhaust inline / progressive alternatives first.
• Tiny uppercase tracked eyebrow above every section. The 2023-era kicker (small all-caps text with wide tracking, "ABOUT" "PROCESS" "PRICING" above each heading) is now the saturated AI scaffold; it appears on 55-95% of generations regardless of brief, which is the definition of a tell. One named kicker as a deliberate brand system is voice; an eyebrow on every section is AI grammar. Choose a different cadence.
• Numbered section markers (01 / 02 / 03). Section labels as numbered display digits is the same trope, one tier deeper. If you find yourself reaching for them, you're scaffolding by reflex.
• Text that overflows its container. Long heading words plus large clamp scales plus narrow grids cause headline overflow on tablet/mobile. Test the heading copy at every breakpoint; if it overflows, reduce the clamp max or rewrite the copy. The viewport is part of the design.

**Codex-specific defects** (your most-frequent giveaways; refuse-and-rewrite):

• border: 1px solid X + box-shadow: 0 Npx Mpx ... with M ≥ 16px on the same element. The "ghost-card" pattern: 1px border plus soft wide drop shadow on buttons and cards. Don't pair them. Pick one (a single solid border at the brand color, OR a defined shadow at no more than 8px blur), never both as decoration.
• border-radius: 32px+ on cards / sections / inputs. You over-round. Cards top out at 12–16px; full-pill is fine for tags/buttons. Picking 24/28/32/40px on a card is the codex tell; no brand wants "insanely rounded".
• Hand-drawn / sketchy SVG illustrations. Class names like loose-sketch, *-sketch, doodle, wavy; feTurbulence / feDisplacementMap "paper grain" filters; 5-to-30 path crude scenes meant to depict a tangible subject (an otter, a table-and-fork, an album cover). All of these read as amateurish, not whimsical. If you can't render the scene with real assets, ship no illustration. Don't attempt sketchy SVG as a fallback.
• repeating-linear-gradient(...) stripe backgrounds. Diagonal stripes in body:before or section backgrounds are pure codex decoration. Don't.
• "X theater" / "actually X" / "not just X, it's Y" copy. "Productivity theater", "engagement theater", "growth theater": instant AI slop. Choose a specific noun, not a meta-criticism phrase.

Copy

• Every word earns its place. No restated headings, no intros that repeat the title.
• No em dashes. Use commas, colons, semicolons, periods, or parentheses. Also not --.
• No aphoristic-cadence body copy as a default voice. Don't fall into the rhythm of "serious statement, then punchy short negation" as the page's recurring voice. If three or more section copy blocks on the page land on a short rebuttal-shaped sentence, rewrite. Specific, not aphoristic.
• No marketing buzzwords. The streamline / empower / supercharge / leverage / unleash / transform / seamless / world-class / enterprise-grade / next-generation / cutting-edge / game-changer / mission-critical family of phrases. Pick a specific noun and a verb that describes what the product literally does.

The AI slop test

If someone could look at this interface and say "AI made that" without doubt, it's failed. Cross-register failures are the absolute bans above. Register-specific failures live in each reference.

Category-reflex check. Run at two altitudes; the second one catches what the first one misses.

• First-order: if someone could guess the theme + palette from the category alone ("observability → dark blue", "healthcare → white + teal", "finance → navy + gold", "crypto → neon on black"), it's the first training-data reflex. Rework the scene sentence and color strategy until the answer isn't obvious from the domain.
• Second-order: if someone could guess the aesthetic family from category-plus-anti-references ("AI workflow tool that's not SaaS-cream → editorial-typographic", "fintech that's not navy-and-gold → terminal-native dark mode"), it's the trap one tier deeper. The first reflex was avoided; the second wasn't. Rework until both answers are not obvious. The brand register's reflex-reject aesthetic lanes list catches the currently-saturated families.

Commands

Command	Category	Description	Reference
craft [feature]	Build	Shape, then build a feature end-to-end	reference/craft.md
shape [feature]	Build	Plan UX/UI before writing code	reference/shape.md
teach	Build	Set up PRODUCT.md and DESIGN.md context	reference/teach.md
document	Build	Generate DESIGN.md from existing project code	reference/document.md
extract [target]	Build	Pull reusable tokens and components into design system	reference/extract.md
critique [target]	Evaluate	UX design review with heuristic scoring	reference/critique.md
audit [target]	Evaluate	Technical quality checks (a11y, perf, responsive)	reference/audit.md
polish [target]	Refine	Final quality pass before shipping	reference/polish.md
bolder [target]	Refine	Amplify safe or bland designs	reference/bolder.md
quieter [target]	Refine	Tone down aggressive or overstimulating designs	reference/quieter.md
distill [target]	Refine	Strip to essence, remove complexity	reference/distill.md
harden [target]	Refine	Production-ready: errors, i18n, edge cases	reference/harden.md
onboard [target]	Refine	Design first-run flows, empty states, activation	reference/onboard.md
animate [target]	Enhance	Add purposeful animations and motion	reference/animate.md
colorize [target]	Enhance	Add strategic color to monochromatic UIs	reference/colorize.md
typeset [target]	Enhance	Improve typography hierarchy and fonts	reference/typeset.md
layout [target]	Enhance	Fix spacing, rhythm, and visual hierarchy	reference/layout.md
delight [target]	Enhance	Add personality and memorable touches	reference/delight.md
overdrive [target]	Enhance	Push past conventional limits	reference/overdrive.md
clarify [target]	Fix	Improve UX copy, labels, and error messages	reference/clarify.md
adapt [target]	Fix	Adapt for different devices and screen sizes	reference/adapt.md
optimize [target]	Fix	Diagnose and fix UI performance	reference/optimize.md
live	Iterate	Visual variant mode: pick elements in the browser, generate alternatives	reference/live.md

Plus two management commands: pin <command> and unpin <command>, detailed below.

Routing rules

1. No argument: render the table above as the user-facing command menu, grouped by category. Ask what they'd like to do.
2. First word matches a command: load its reference file and follow its instructions. Everything after the command name is the target.
3. First word doesn't match: general design invocation. Apply the setup steps, shared design laws, and the loaded register reference, using the full argument as context.

Setup (context gathering, register) is already loaded by then; sub-commands don't re-invoke {{command_prefix}}impeccable.

If the first word is craft, setup still runs first, but reference/craft.md owns the rest of the flow. If setup invokes teach as a blocker, finish teach, refresh context, then resume the original command and target.

Pin / Unpin

Pin creates a standalone shortcut so {{command_prefix}}<command> invokes {{command_prefix}}impeccable <command> directly. Unpin removes it. The script writes to every harness directory present in the project.

node {{scripts_path}}/pin.mjs <pin|unpin> <command>

Valid <command> is any command from the table above. Report the script's result concisely. Confirm the new shortcut on success, relay stderr verbatim on error.