๐ฅ Open Design 0.13.0 โ Stay in Flow is here. Long design sessions used to break on every interruption โ a run lost its place, a model picker made you guess, an export needed one more detour. 0.13.0 keeps the session alive: resume Codex / OpenCode / Pi / Open Design Cloud runs across turns, pick the right model faster, and hand off screenshot-backed PPTX / PDF without leaving the app. Download 0.13.0 ยท Release notes
โก Open Design Cloud โ the official model service. One recharge to use GPT, Claude, Gemini, and DeepSeek inside Open Design: 20+ flagship models, zero config, billed by real token usage. Try Open Design Cloud
๐ The Open Design Fellow program is now open. If you also believe design should be open โ become an Open Design Fellow, shape the product alongside the core team, and help more people take part in defining the future of design. Details โ MAINTAINERS.md and Discord.
What is Open Design
๐จ The open-source Claude Design alternative. ย ๐ฅ๏ธ Local-first native desktop app for macOS and Windows. ย โก Composable skills, brand-grade DESIGN.md design systems, and ready-to-use plugins. ย ๐ผ๏ธ Generates web ยท desktop ยท mobile prototypes, live dashboards / artifacts, decks, images, video, plus HyperFrames motion graphics. ๐ Sandboxed iframe preview ยท HTML / PDF / PPTX / MP4 export. ย ๐ค Runs on Claude Code ยท OpenClaw ยท Codex ยท Cursor ยท OpenCode ยท Qwen ยท Copilot ยท Amp ยท Hermes ยท Kimi ยท Antigravity and 25 distinct local CLI executables, or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint via BYOK.
Open Design is what you get when the agent-native loop Anthropic shipped with Claude Design โ discover the brief, lock the direction, stream the artifact, critique, deliver โ stops being closed and becomes a filesystem of functional skills, rendering design templates, design systems, and plugins that the coding agents already on your laptop can read, write, and remix. Your CLI becomes the design engine, your laptop becomes the studio, and your team's DESIGN.md becomes the brand contract.
It's also the Figma alternative for the agent era โ instead of pushing pixels on a canvas, it delivers single-page artifacts in real CSS, real fonts, real components, exported straight to HTML / PDF / PPTX / MP4 โ already shaped by your design system, already runnable inside the agent you use every day.
Product tour
A quick look at what Open Design is and what it does. Start from Home, orchestrate repeat workflows with Automation, distill a brand contract in Design System, and extend with Plugins and integrations; inside any project's Studio, the same design system streams out prototypes, live artifacts, HyperFrames, decks, and images.
Core pages
Studio โ many artifact types in one project
Inside a project's Studio, the same design system streams out multiple artifact types:
Platform Compatibility
Open Design ships as skills, a CLI, and an MCP server that mainstream coding agents consume natively. Once OD is installed, a single od mcp install <agent> wires the MCP server into that agent's config, and you call the same tools from inside any agent.
od mcp install <agent> --print for a dry-run preview ยท --uninstall to remove ยท full list with od mcp install --help.
No CLI installed? The BYOK proxy at POST /api/proxy/{anthropic,openai,azure,google,ollama,senseaudio}/stream gives you the same loop (no process spawn) โ paste baseUrl + apiKey + model, with presets for OpenAI, Atlas Cloud, Anthropic, Azure OpenAI, Google Gemini, Ollama, LM Studio, vLLM, or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint. Atlas Cloud uses https://api.atlascloud.ai/v1 with your own key and OpenAI-compatible model ids such as qwen/qwen3.5-flash. Per-target SSRF protection blocks internal IPs / link-local / CGNAT at the daemon edge.
Every deck exports to HTML (single file, inlined assets), PDF (browser print, deck-aware), PPTX (agent-driven skill), ZIP (archive), or Markdown.
4 ยท Images โ gpt-image-2, ImageRouter, custom API
93 ready-to-replicate prompts live in prompt-templates/ โ preview thumbnails, full prompt body, target model, aspect ratio, and source attribution. One click drops a brief into the composer.
5 ยท Video & HyperFrames โ agent-native motion graphics
HyperFrames is HeyGen's open-source, agent-native video framework, integrated as a first-class citizen in Open Design. The agent writes HTML + CSS + GSAP, and HyperFrames renders it to a deterministic MP4 via headless Chrome + FFmpeg. Pair it with Seedance 2.0 for cinematic t2v / i2v, Veo 3 / Sora 2 / Kling 2 for routed model variants, and Suno v5 / Lyria 2 for the audio layer.
11 HyperFrames templates + 39 Seedance prompts ship with the repo. Catalog thumbnails ยฉ HeyGen; the framework is Apache-2.0. The OD-specific render workflow (composition cache, sandbox-exec workaround, MP4-as-chip) is detailed in design-templates/hyperframes/.
Why Open Design
In April 2026, Anthropic released Claude Design โ the first time an LLM stopped writing prose and started delivering design artifacts directly. It went viral. But it stayed closed-source, paid-only, cloud-only, locked to Anthropic's model, Anthropic's skills, Anthropic's surface. No checkout, no self-host, no Vercel deploy, no swap-in-your-own-agent.
Open Design (OD) is the open-source alternative. Same loop, same artifact-first mental model, none of the lock-in:
๐ค Agent-native, model-agnostic. We don't ship an agent. The claude / codex / cursor-agent / copilot / hermes / kimi already on your PATH are the design engine. Swap with one click.
๐ง Brand-grade by default. Every render reads the active package's DESIGN.md as the core brand contract. 151 design-system packages ship with the repo; legacy packages may be DESIGN.md-only, while newer packages can add manifest.json, tokens.css, components, assets, and provenance. Drop a folder in, the picker finds it.
๐ฅ๏ธ Local-first, BYOK at every layer. Native desktop apps for macOS (Apple Silicon + Intel) and Windows (x64). Linux AppImage on the optional release lane. Product analytics and session replay are consent-gated; scrubbed safety and reliability telemetry is always on. Before describing daemon data paths, contributors and operators MUST read AGENTS.md โ Daemon data directory contract. This README MUST NOT restate it.
๐ Composable on four planes.Plugins carry runnable workflows ยท functional skills carry agent behavior ยท design templates carry rendering blueprints ยท design systems carry the brand. All four use portable, versionable directories that anyone can author and publish.
๐ Refresh an existing codebase. Hand a git repo + DESIGN.md to the agent and it refactors your real components to the brand spec. Dedicated plugins migrate Figma / Pencil workflows into React / Next.js / Vue code.
๐ Privacy by conviction. Everything runs where your data lives โ your laptop, your team's server, your Vercel project. When the network is needed, the BYOK proxy is SSRF-guarded.
After install: the app auto-detects every coding-agent CLI on your PATH, loads 100+ functional skills, the separate rendering-template catalog, and 151 design systems, and lets you type a brief in the entry view.
๐ค Install into your coding agent (no UI)
You can use Open Design without ever opening the GUI โ call it as a skill, plugin, or MCP server inside Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Copilot, OpenClaw, Antigravity, Hermes, Kimi, and more.
If you installed the macOS desktop app via the DMG or Homebrew cask, your shell
may still resolve od to Apple's built-in /usr/bin/od octal-dump utility. In
that case, open Settings โ MCP server in the desktop app and copy the
client-specific snippet; it uses absolute paths and does not rely on the bare
od command.
# One-line install into the agent you're using:
od mcp install <agent>
# <agent> = claude | codex | reasonix | raven | cursor | copilot | openclaw
# | antigravity | gemini | pi | vibe | hermes | cline | kimi
# | trae | opencode
# Hosted equivalent for curl-based setup:
curl -fsSL https://open-design.ai/install.sh | sh -s <agent>
install.sh is a thin shell wrapper around od mcp install; it exists so the
hosted URL returns shell instead of the landing-page HTML fallback and fails
fast if your shell resolves a non-Open-Design od binary.
macOS / WSL2 users:/usr/bin/od is a system octal-dump command and can
shadow Open Design's od command. Desktop-app users should prefer the
Settings โ MCP server snippet; WSL2 users should follow the
WSL2 setup guide first.
Then, inside the agent:
> Use open-design to generate a landing page with the Linear design system
In a filesystem-backed local CLI run, the agent composes the selected functional skill or design template with your DESIGN.md, writes the canonical project files, and Open Design previews those files. A BYOK/plain-API run without filesystem tools instead returns one complete <artifact> block.
๐ณ Run with Docker
git clone https://github.com/nexu-io/open-design.git
cd open-design/deploy
cp .env.example .env
echo "OD_API_TOKEN=$(openssl rand -hex 32)" >> .env
docker compose up -d
# open http://localhost:7456
macOS users: If the web UI shows Authorization: Bearer <OD_API_TOKEN> required, Docker Desktop bridge networking is the cause. See Docker Desktop on macOS for the fix.
๐ Deploy on Sealos
The Sealos App Store template runs the published Open Design Docker image with persistent workspace storage and Basic Auth on the public proxy. For custom public or shared Docker deployments, follow the reverse-proxy and OPEN_DESIGN_ALLOWED_ORIGINS guidance in deploy/README.md.
๐งโ๐ป Run from source
git clone https://github.com/nexu-io/open-design.git
cd open-design
corepack enable && pnpm install
pnpm tools-dev run web
Open the URL printed by tools-dev; development ports are allocated dynamically unless you pass explicit port flags.
brief โ plugin โ direction โ design system โ artifact โ handoff โ memory
A PM submits a brief. The plugin picker offers landing page ยท pitch deck ยท dashboard ยท social post ยท PM spec ยท OKR scorecardโฆ
A designer (or the agent) locks the direction. No brand? Pick from 5 curated directions. Have a brand? Drop a screenshot / URL โ the agent connects GitHub, imports Figma, and codifies a reusable DESIGN.md.
The agent creates the first deliverable. Plugin + functional skill or design template + DESIGN.md are bound. Filesystem-backed CLI runs write canonical project files and the preview follows them; BYOK/plain-API runs without file tools return one complete <artifact> block.
Hand off to engineering. The artifact is real HTML/CSS โ drop it into Cursor, Codex, or Claude Code to keep building as code. Or export PPTX / PDF / MP4 straight to marketing.
Open Design gets smarter as you use it. Your screenshots, fonts, palettes, and confirmed artifacts accumulate as defaults for the next session. Less rework, less drift.
Use Open Design from your coding agent
Open Design ships a stdio MCP server and per-agent install scripts. Any MCP-compatible agent in another repo can read files from your local Open Design projects directly โ tokens CSS, JSX components, entry HTML โ as a structured API queryable by name. The agent always sees the live file, not a stale export.
# One-line install (16+ CLIs supported):
od mcp install <agent>
# Then the agent can:
od project list --json
od files list <project-id> --json
od files read <project-id> <relative-path>
od plugin list --json
od skills list --json
Why MCP? Exporting and re-attaching a zip every iteration breaks flow. MCP exposes the design source directly โ the agent always sees the live file.
For an agent starting from scratch, the installer places ~/.config/<agent>/open-design.json (or the platform equivalent) plus a copy-paste MCP snippet. Cursor gets a one-click deeplink; Claude Code gets a claude mcp add-json one-liner; every other agent gets JSON in the schema its config expects. On macOS desktop installs, prefer that Settings snippet over typing bare od mcp install <agent> in Terminal, because /usr/bin/od may win on PATH. Full per-agent flow โ Settings โ MCP server in the desktop app, or docs/agent-adapters.md.
Security model. Read-only by default, the daemon binds to 127.0.0.1, and SSRF is blocked at the proxy edge. LAN exposure requires an explicit OD_BIND_HOST plus OD_ALLOWED_ORIGINS. Connector credentials and live-artifact preview routes stay loopback-only regardless.
Internally-hosted model endpoints. To prevent SSRF, the daemon blocks provider base URLs that resolve to private/internal address ranges (RFC1918, link-local, CGNAT, and cloud-metadata IPs) by default, surfacing Internal IPs blocked. If you run an internally-hosted gateway (e.g. LiteLLM or Ollama on a VPN-only 10.x/192.168.x address), opt that host out with OD_ALLOWED_INTERNAL_HOSTS=<host1>,<host2>,... โ a comma- or whitespace-separated list of bare hostnames or IPs (10.0.0.5, litellm.internal.corp; a host:port or full URL is accepted and reduced to its hostname; IPv6 must be bracketed, e.g. [fd00::1]). The allowlist is strict opt-in (empty by default), exact-host (no subdomain/substring matching), and applies only to provider endpoints you configure (connection test, model discovery, BYOK chat). It deliberately does not relax the guard on download URLs returned inside upstream responses, which stay blocked. A malformed entry โ or CIDR notation, which is not supported โ is dropped with a warning rather than silently trusted, so a typo never quietly widens (or fails to widen) the guard. Allowlisting a hostname trusts whatever it resolves to (like OD_ALLOWED_ORIGINS); allowlist the resolved IP instead if you want the DNS-resolved address re-checked.
Skills and design templates
100+ functional skills ship in skills/. Each follows the Agent Skills SKILL.md convention and supplies reusable agent behavior, references, or utilities. Renderable starters live separately in design-templates/; they may also use SKILL.md, but they populate the design-template catalog rather than the functional-skill registry.
Two modes anchor the design-template catalog: prototype (web/mobile/desktop single-page artifacts) and deck (horizontal-swipe presentations). Other templates cover image, video, audio, and utility surfaces. The scenario field groups templates by audience: design ยท marketing ยท operation ยท engineering ยท product ยท finance ยท hr ยท sale ยท personal.
Full protocol and directory split โ docs/skills-protocol.md. Registry endpoints: GET /api/skills for functional skills and GET /api/design-templates for rendering templates.
Design Systems
151 brand-grade design-system packages centered on DESIGN.md ship with the repo. Legacy packages may contain only that Markdown contract; newer packages can also carry manifest.json, compiled tokens.css, component fixtures, assets, and provenance evidence. The catalog mixes upstream-derived systems with project-owned additions; design-systems/README.md records the package shape and provenance. Switch a system โ the next render uses the new tokens.
277 official plugins plus 183 remixable reference examples live in plugins/_official/. Each entry is a portable plugin directory anchored by open-design.json plus the payload required by its type: for example SKILL.md for agent workflows, template.json for media templates, or DESIGN.md for design-system entries. Jump straight to a category:
๐ค Run in any coding agent โ Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Copilot, OpenClaw, Antigravity, Hermes, Kimiโฆ through the same skill protocol the agent already knows.
๐ Migrate Figma / Pencil workflows โ React, Next.js, or Vue source. See od-figma-migration.
๐ ๏ธ Refresh an existing codebase to a brand spec โ point a plugin at a git repo + DESIGN.md, get a PR. See od-code-migration.
๐พ Persist custom workflows โ your team's reusable templates sit next to the shipped ones.
Using plugins
Plugins are at full parity across the web UI and the od CLI โ same /api/plugins endpoints, pick whichever fits.
In the desktop / web app: open the Plugin page to browse the marketplace and click Install; inside a project's Studio, plugins appear as composer chips you click to apply (with the inputs they declare).
On the command line (runs without a UI โ this is the path external agents use):
od plugin list # list installed plugins (--task-kind / --mode / --tag filters)
od plugin search "landing page" # search by keyword
od plugin info od-default # inspect a plugin's metadata, inputs, capabilities
od plugin install od-figma-migration # install from a registry; also accepts ./local-folder or an https://โฆ link
od plugin apply od-default --input brief="a one-page pitch for our seed round"
od plugin upgrade od-default # upgrade
od plugin uninstall od-default # uninstall
Every command supports --json, so you can pipe it through jq / xargs into automation.
Building a plugin
An Open Design plugin requires open-design.json plus the payload required by its type. A workflow skill or scenario also includes SKILL.md; manifest-only template and design-system entries use their own payloads instead:
Drop the plugin folder into plugins/community/ (third-party plugins), or โ to ship it bundled with Open Design โ into the matching tier of plugins/_official/.
Fill the PR using the template in plugins/spec/CONTRIBUTING.md (ID, version, lane, mode, capabilities, trigger examples; attach a screenshot / preview for visual plugins).
0.9.0 โ Open Design Cloud (official model service built into the app: zero config, one-click sign-in)
0.10.0 โ the all-in-one design workspace: the whole craft loop in one window (references โ material โ interactive editing โ motion โ handoff)
0.11.0 โ The Bazaar: built in the open โ a community marketplace of plugins and design systems anyone can pick from and contribute to
0.12.0 โ Brand-backed Design System: turn the brand you already own into a reusable, portable DESIGN.md system
0.13.0 โ Stay in Flow: native session resume, faster model picking, and export straight to screenshot-backed PPTX / PDF
Packaged Electron builds โ macOS (Apple Silicon + Intel) + Windows (x64) + Linux AppImage (optional lane)
Open Design keeps moving because contributors โ designers, engineers, prompt authors โ keep showing up. Many of the most-used skills, design systems, and plugins were written by people outside the core team.
๐ฏ Where to start (max leverage, min change)
Want to shipโฆ
How
Where
A new functional skill
Drop a folder with SKILL.md + optional assets/ + references/
If you are the agent reading this, the fastest path is:
# 1. Boot locally
git clone https://github.com/nexu-io/open-design.git
cd open-design && corepack enable && pnpm install
pnpm tools-dev run web
# 2. Find a good-first-issue and assign yourself
gh issue list --label "good first issue" --state open --limit 20
gh issue develop <number> # create a branch and worktree
# 3. Make the change, run the checks
pnpm guard && pnpm typecheck
pnpm --filter @open-design/<package> test
# 4. Open the PR
gh pr create --fill
We're recruiting Open Design Fellows around the world โ Fellows shape the product alongside the core team, represent Open Design officially in their region, and grow the community locally, backed by funded support ($1,000 / MR), free LLM credits, and a direct review track. Details โ MAINTAINERS.md and the announcement on Discord.
Maintainers
They carry a lot of the load โ daily maintenance, review, and community support.
If this saved you thirty minutes, give it a โ . Stars don't pay rent โ but they tell the next designer, agent, and contributor that this experiment is worth their attention. One click, three seconds, a real signal.
References & lineage
Project
Role
Claude Design
The closed-source product this repo is the open-source alternative to.
Apache-2.0. Bundled skills and templates with their own LICENSE files retain those licenses, including design-templates/guizang-ppt/ (MIT, @op7418), design-templates/html-ppt/ (MIT, @lewislulu), and skills/web-clone/ (MIT, @Jane-xiaoer).
