shape

SKILL.md

Structured UX and UI planning through discovery interview, producing a design brief before implementation.

Runs a guided discovery interview covering purpose, users, content, design goals, constraints, and anti-goals to establish shared understanding before any code is written

Synthesizes interview findings into a nine-section design brief: feature summary, primary user action, design direction, layout strategy, key states, interaction model, content requirements, reference recommendations, and open questions

Designed as a planning-phase skill that outputs a handoff artifact for implementation tools like /impeccable craft, not a code-generation tool

Emphasizes deep thinking over premature design decisions, asking clarifying questions to avoid generic UI patterns and ensure implementation aligns with actual user needs

MANDATORY PREPARATION

Invoke /impeccable, which contains design principles, anti-patterns, and the Context Gathering Protocol. Follow the protocol before proceeding. If no design context exists yet, you MUST run /impeccable teach first.

Shape the UX and UI for a feature before any code is written. This skill produces a design brief: a structured artifact that guides implementation through discovery, not guesswork.

Scope: Design planning only. This skill does NOT write code. It produces the thinking that makes code good.

Output: A design brief that can be handed off to /impeccable craft, /impeccable, or any other implementation skill.

Philosophy

Most AI-generated UIs fail not because of bad code, but because of skipped thinking. They jump to "here's a card grid" without asking "what is the user trying to accomplish?" This skill inverts that: understand deeply first, so implementation is precise.

Phase 1: Discovery Interview

Do NOT write any code or make any design decisions during this phase. Your only job is to understand the feature deeply enough to make excellent design decisions later.