Search skills/

OpenDesign agent skills

A local-first desktop design workspace where coding agents build prototypes, decks and media from a brief, with 151 design systems and hundreds of templates.

nexu-io/open-design 562 skills Design & frontendDocuments & office files

with caveats

Large and actively developed, but it is a desktop app and daemon with its own setup, and the README promotes a paid cloud plan and a curl-to-shell installer.

broad access: pre-approves shell commands · curl | sh installer → security details

Depth
3/5
Last update
today
Installs
—
Stars
105K
Forks
12K
License
Apache-2.0

What OpenDesign does

OpenDesign is a full application, not a drop-in skill pack. You write a brief, and a coding agent or OpenDesign Cloud turns it into a prototype that follows the active design system. You can share that prototype for team feedback and let the agent refine it in the same project. The repo ships native desktop apps for macOS and Windows. Linux users run it from source. It also includes a Docker deploy and a local daemon that binds to 127.0.0.1.

Most of the 562 skill folders are design templates under design-templates/. Each one is a SKILL.md with triggers, OpenDesign metadata and often a runnable example.html, covering things like a SaaS landing page, dashboard, mobile onboarding, docs page, slide decks and an audio jingle. Every render reads a design-system package built around DESIGN.md, and 151 of these packages ship with the repo. A stdio MCP server, with per-agent install scripts, lets agents in other repos read your OpenDesign project files: tokens CSS, JSX components and entry HTML. A BYOK proxy covers Anthropic, OpenAI, Azure, Google and Ollama when no agent CLI is installed. The .claude/skills/od-contribute skill uses scripts and templates to walk non-coders through opening a PR or issue against the project.

Good for

  • Teams that want a shared workspace for agent-built prototypes and decks
  • Generating on-brand web pages from a DESIGN.md design system
  • Starting from a large library of runnable HTML templates

Not for

  • Anyone who wants a lightweight SKILL.md to add to an existing agent setup
  • Linux users who need a packaged desktop app

What's inside depth 3/5

562 skill folders averaging about 5.4 KB, many with runnable example.html templates and some with references, plus one contribution skill with 11 scripts, but only one eval file in the repo.

Skills
562
Reference docs
128
Scripts
122
Tests / evals
1
Templates
225
Avg SKILL.md
5.3 KB

Counted from the repository file tree. How we score depth.

Dependencies and costs

  • Model access through your own API keys (BYOK) or a paid OpenDesign Cloud / Go plan
  • Node ~24 and pnpm 10.33.x to run from source
  • Docker for the self-hosted deploy option
  • GitHub CLI (gh) logged in for the od-contribute skill
  • Automatic Claude Desktop MCP configuration works on macOS and Windows only

Security review

Security: Broad access

This skill asks for more access than most, or sends data to another service. That is usually a design choice rather than bad intent, but you should know before you install it.

  • Pre-approves broad shell commandsFrontmatter allowed-tools pre-approves unrestricted Bash, along with Write, Edit and WebFetch..claude/skills/od-contribute/SKILL.md:5

This repo is the OpenDesign app plus a large set of design templates and an od-contribute skill. That skill pre-approves unrestricted Bash and can clone the repo, push branches and open PRs or issues on GitHub with your gh credentials; it asks for confirmation before pushing. Its installer is meant to be piped from GitHub into bash and writes into ~/.claude, ~/.agents and ~/.codex. Most of the repo's code, including the daemon and CLI, and four binaries were not available for review.

Worth knowing

  • Installs with curl | shInstall instructions tell the user or agent to pipe install.sh from raw.githubusercontent.com/nexu-io/open-design into bash..claude/skills/od-contribute/install.sh:10
  • Installs with curl | shREADME tells users to run curl -fsSL https://open-design.ai/install.sh | sh.README.md:276
  • Runs remote code at an unpinned versionInstaller downloads and installs the current tarball of the main branch (or a branch set by env var), not a pinned version..claude/skills/od-contribute/install.sh:44
  • Changes files outside your projectInstaller writes the skill into ~/.claude/skills, ~/.claude/commands, ~/.agents/skills and ~/.codex/skills, deleting any existing copies there first..claude/skills/od-contribute/install.sh:107
  • Makes network requestsSends HEAD requests to up to 50 external URLs found in the repo's Markdown docs to check for dead links..claude/skills/od-contribute/scripts/discover-doc-gaps.sh:109
  • Makes network requestsSends HEAD requests to up to 20 external links per validated Markdown file..claude/skills/od-contribute/scripts/validate-markdown.sh:172
  • Makes network requestsUses git and gh to clone, push branches and open PRs/issues on GitHub under the user's account, after an explicit 'Ship it' confirmation in SKILL.md..claude/skills/od-contribute/scripts/create-pr.sh:82
  • Relies on a CLI or package we could not reviewDesign templates dispatch work through the OpenDesign daemon/CLI ($OD_BIN media generate), whose source was not reviewed.design-templates/audio-jingle/SKILL.md
  • Relies on a CLI or package we could not reviewREADME references running the OpenDesign CLI via npx od without a pinned version.README.md:577
  • Contains compiled binariesRepo contains 7z.exe, 7z.dll and two gzipped JS bundles that we could not read.tools/pack/resources/win/7zip/7z.exe

What we checked

The repository (14192 files) on Nov 1, 2026. Not a full review: 13171 of 14192 files were not downloaded (large repository; we reviewed the skill folders); it contains compiled binaries or archives we cannot read; we read 11 of 36 code files; it relies on code outside the repository: Most of the repo: 13171 readable files were not provided, including the OpenDesign daemon, desktop app, web app and .claude/commands/od-contribute.md; design-templates/html-ppt JavaScript runtime and animation files plus new-deck.sh and render.sh (listed as code files but their text was not provided); install.sh served from https://open-design.ai (referenced in README).

NVIDIA SkillSpector static scan: 31 pattern hits (Privilege Escalation 10, Agent Snooping 7, MCP Rug Pull 5, Supply Chain 3, Excessive Agency 3, Data Exfiltration 2). The curl|bash and keychain hits are the od-contribute installer and gh-auth help text. The token handling only reads an optional .gh-token file for gh, which talks to GitHub. The filebase curl|sh and keyring hits are sample content inside design-template example HTML, and the 'skill enumeration' hits are documentation path mentions.

A review, not a certification. Skills change after we check them — read the files before installing.

License

Apache 2.0, commercial use allowed. Some bundled templates are adapted from other repos, such as op7418/guizang-ppt-skill, so check their sources.

Can it run unattended?

Not really. The workflow centers on a brief, a live preview and team feedback inside a desktop workspace, and the dossier shows no unattended loop or stop conditions.

Alternatives to OpenDesign

Impeccable

pbakaus/impeccable

A design skill with 24 commands (polish, bolder, critique, audit, harden and more), a 62-rule deterministic slop detector and an optional edit hook.

with caveats Security: Broad access depth4/5

UI UX Pro Max

nextlevelbuilder/ui-ux-pro-max-skill

A design skill backed by searchable style, palette and font catalogs, with a design-system generator and five companion design skills.

recommended Security: Check first depth4/5

Taste Skill

Leonxlnx/taste-skill

An anti-generic-design skill that gives the agent an art direction, open-licensed photos and a headless-browser check loop for web pages and app screens.

recommended Security: Check first depth4/5

Frontend Slides

zarazhangrui/frontend-slides

Skill that builds animated, single-file HTML slide decks from scratch or from a PowerPoint, after showing you three visual style previews.

recommended Security: Check first depth4/5

FAQ

What is OpenDesign?

OpenDesign is an open-source, local-first workspace from nexu-io where coding agents create prototypes, websites, dashboards, presentations, images and videos from a brief. It ships 151 design-system packages built around DESIGN.md and hundreds of templates written as SKILL.md files.

How do I install OpenDesign?

Download the desktop app for macOS (Apple Silicon or Intel) or Windows x64 from open-design.ai or GitHub Releases. On Linux, run it from source with Node ~24 and pnpm 10.33.x. A Docker compose setup in deploy/ uses an OD_API_TOKEN that you generate yourself.

Can I use OpenDesign with Claude Code or Codex?

Yes. OpenDesign ships a stdio MCP server with per-agent install scripts, so an MCP-compatible agent in another repo can read your local OpenDesign project files. On macOS and WSL2, note that /usr/bin/od is the system octal-dump command, which can conflict with the OpenDesign CLI name.

Is OpenDesign free?

The code is Apache 2.0 and supports bring-your-own-key access to Anthropic, OpenAI, Azure, Google and Ollama. OpenDesign Cloud and the Go plan are paid, and the README promotes discounted Go credits.

Is OpenDesign safe to install?

We found no hidden network calls or credential harvesting in the dossier. The daemon binds to localhost and is read-only by default. Be careful with the curl-to-shell installers, and know that the od-contribute skill uses your GitHub token to open PRs.

Curated by , AI enthusiast. Reviews are written by AI reviewers under our rubric and checked against the repository files.

Sources: GitHub repository (stars, license, file tree, last push Nov 1, 2026). Review based on the README and SKILL.md files as published.