What is the design-consultation skill?
The gstack design-consultation skill helps a new project get its visual identity. It learns your product, researches comparable designs, proposes a complete system covering aesthetic, typography, color, layout, spacing and motion, generates font and color previews, and records the result in a DESIGN.md file.
design-consultation is one of the design skills in Garry Tan's gstack collection. Its description says it understands your product, can research the field if you agree, and proposes a complete design system, then generates font and color previews for you to judge.
SKILL.md states that it creates DESIGN.md as your project's design source of truth. It is the skill to reach for when a project starts its UI with no design system and no DESIGN.md.
What you get from a session
- A written proposal across six areas: aesthetic, typography, color, layout, spacing and motion.
- Font and color preview pages, so you react to real samples instead of a list of names.
- A DESIGN.md file that later skills and agents can read before touching the interface.
- Questions put to you through AskUserQuestion, so the choices stay yours.
How it uses what already exists
- It looks for an existing DESIGN.md in the repository before proposing anything new.
- It reads up to three prior design decision files saved for the project.
- It checks CEO plan notes tagged with the repo that mention a brand.
- Its allowed tools include WebSearch, which supports the research step.
Who the design-consultation skill is for
Best for
- Founders starting a product whose interface has no design system yet.
- Teams that want a DESIGN.md before building screens, using phrases like design system, create a brand or design from scratch.
- Solo builders who want structured design questions in place of a blank prompt.
Not for
- Existing sites. SKILL.md says to use /plan-design-review there to infer the system instead, which the plan design review skill covers.
- Audit-then-fix work on an existing UI, which the design-review skill covers.
What comes after the design system
The README describes /design-shotgun as the way to explore mockup variants, and /design-html as the step that turns an approved mockup into production HTML and CSS.
How to install gstack Design Consultation Skill: Build a DESIGN.md
git clone --single-branch --depth 1 https://github.com/garrytan/gstack.git ~/.claude/skills/gstack && cd ~/.claude/skills/gstack && ./setupCheck what you need
The README lists Claude Code, Git and Bun v1.4.2 or newer. Node.js is needed on Windows only.
Clone gstack and run setup
Run the command above. The README says setup took 31 seconds on a clean Linux machine, and slower networks take longer.
Pick another agent if needed
A bare ./setup installs for Claude Code only. Use ./setup --host codex for Codex, or --host auto to install for every agent setup detects.
Run the skill
Type /design-consultation. The README shows Codex, Cursor, Factory Droid and Kiro invoked by asking for the gstack prefixed name, and Copilot and OpenCode using a /gstack prefix.
Check that it loaded
Start a new project folder with no DESIGN.md and run /design-consultation. It should read your project first, ask what it cannot infer, then propose a system across the six areas, show font and color previews, and write DESIGN.md.
Key features
- Product understanding firstQuestion one opens with a pre-filled read of your product from the README and product files: what it is, who it is for and the project type. You confirm or correct it.
- Optional market researchYou choose whether the skill researches what top products in your space do for design first, or works from design knowledge only. WebSearch sits in its allowed tools.
- Six part design systemThe proposal covers aesthetic, typography, color, layout, spacing and motion, which gives later skills one complete reference to follow.
- Font and color previewsIt generates font and color previews, using AI mockups when the design tooling is available and an HTML preview when it is not.
- DESIGN.md as source of truthThe output is a DESIGN.md file at the project level, described in SKILL.md as the project's design source of truth.
- Memorable-thing questionIt asks what one thing you want someone to remember after first seeing the product, and every later design decision has to serve that answer.
- Prior decision memoryIt pulls up to three earlier design decision files for the same repository, so past choices come back into the conversation.
- Update, start fresh or cancelWhen a DESIGN.md already exists, it asks whether to update it, start fresh or cancel, and a cancel stops the skill with no file changes.
- Brand note lookupIts context queries search CEO plan notes tagged for the repo that mention brand.
- Trigger phrasesIt activates on design system, create a brand and design from scratch, and when asked for brand guidelines or a DESIGN.md.
Frequently asked questions
What is the gstack design-consultation skill?
It is a design skill in the gstack collection. The agent learns your product, can research comparable products if you agree, proposes a full design system covering type, color, layout, spacing and motion, shows font and color previews and records the outcome in DESIGN.md.
How do I install design-consultation?
Install gstack itself. Run the README clone command into your agent's skills folder, then run ./setup from that folder. The design-consultation skill arrives with the rest of the collection. Bare ./setup installs for Claude Code only, and --host followed by an agent name picks another agent.
Does it work for an existing site?
SKILL.md points existing sites elsewhere. It says to use /plan-design-review to infer the system for them, and keeps design-consultation for projects that need a design system created from nothing, with no DESIGN.md in place yet. That keeps the two jobs separate.
What does DESIGN.md contain?
SKILL.md describes the open format as design tokens in the front matter and the rationale in the sections. A bundled gstack-design-md.ts script can print the flat token map, and an older legacy DESIGN.md can be converted to the open format, keeping a .legacy.bak copy.
Which tools can it use?
The frontmatter allows Bash, Read, Write, Edit, Glob, Grep, AskUserQuestion and WebSearch. Write and Edit let it save DESIGN.md, and WebSearch supports the optional research step. It asks you questions through AskUserQuestion rather than guessing at your choices.
Which agents does gstack support?
The README table lists Claude Code at the full tier. Codex CLI, OpenCode, Cursor, Factory Droid, Kiro, GitHub Copilot CLI and Antigravity CLI are experimental. Slate, OpenClaw, Hermes and GBrain are instruction-only installs, so check the table for your agent.
Can I stop it suggesting itself?
Yes. SKILL.md says that when PROACTIVE is false, skills are not auto-invoked or suggested, even by asking whether to run one. Then it only runs when you explicitly invoke it yourself, for example by typing /design-consultation in your session or asking for it.
What license does gstack use?
The README describes gstack as free, MIT licensed, open source software with no premium tier and no waitlist. It invites you to fork it and make it your own, and that covers the design-consultation skill because it ships inside the same repository.