Claude Design Skills, Ranked by Verdict: UI/UX and Frontend

Designer Skills Collection (78) and Anthropic's Frontend Design (76) are the best Claude design skills in our independent review. Both earn Recommended; no design skill reaches Highly Recommended.

This hub ranks installable Claude design skills, the SKILL.md packages an agent loads for UI, UX and frontend work. It does not rank the Claude Design product, which has its own section below. Each row links to a full verdict with the reviewed commit, the safety grade and the agents we verified.

What are the best Claude design skills for UI/UX and frontend work?

The best Claude design skills are Designer Skills Collection (78) and Anthropic's Frontend Design (76), both Recommended. Web Design Engineer (72) ranks third among 17 Claude design skills ranked by verdict score. None reaches Highly Recommended.

Skill packs sit outside the ranking because a pack bundles several skills under one verdict.

The pack lives in the jakubkrehel/skills repo on GitHub.

Two motion verdicts sit close to this list. Our review of Emil Kowalski's Animate skill gives it 77. The Emil Design Engineering verdict gives 76.

How were these Claude design skills ranked?

Each skill gets a published verdict score at a pinned commit, and the table sorts by that score.

The score weighs seven universal measures plus four to eight measures for the skill's job. The worst failure carries the most weight. The safety grade comes from reading the files, scripts and network calls. The full rules sit in how we score and grade skills.

How does this ranking differ from other lists?

Two other ranked lists use different criteria from ours. Snyk's list, published 2026-03-02, orders 8 skills by problem domain. It includes 4 Vercel skills that we rank elsewhere or have not evaluated yet. Composio's list, published 2026-05-05, ranks 10 skills by "user value, installation simplicity, scope, production readiness".

Our list orders each skill by its published verdict score at a pinned commit. Some picks overlap. Snyk's #1, #2 and #5 are our #2, #11 and #6. Composio's #1, #2, #3 and #5 are our #2, #9, #15 and #1. Our rows add four fields those lists omit: safety grade, confidence, verified agents and known failures.

What changed since our review?

Three ranked skills shipped newer releases after our 2026-09-30 review. Each verdict stays unchanged until we review the new release.

• Impeccable released skill-v4.7.0 on 2026-10-19. We reviewed skill-v4.5.0 at commit 508d7e8.
• Taste Skill released v2.1.3 on 2026-10-19. We reviewed plugin 1.0.0 at commit ce26fc2.
• shadcn/ui released shadcn@4.22.1 on 2026-10-18. We reviewed CLI 4.21.1 at commit 295a1f1.

Frontend Design's plugin copy in anthropics/claude-code matches the reviewed file byte for byte.

What does each top Claude design skill do best?

Each top Claude design skill fits one job. Designer Skills Collection covers UX process, Frontend Design builds new pages, and Impeccable critiques existing UI. The 12 cards below give each skill's verdict, safety grade and main limitation.

1. Designer Skills Collection

Recommended, 78, safety grade B, Moderate confidence. Designer Skills Collection is a design-process skill set for Claude Code. It writes research plans, component specs, handoff packages and critiques using named frameworks and UX laws. The README lists 111 skills and 34 commands across 9 plugins, matching what we found at commit 9a6930c. The author's March 2026 launch post counted 63 skills across 8 plugins. It is weaker on visual taste than on process. Load and routing defects (#22, #27, #48) reached users before fixes. Read the Designer Skills Collection verdict for the failure log.

2. Frontend Design

Recommended, 76, safety grade A, Moderate confidence. Anthropic's Frontend Design gives an agent a deliberate visual direction for a new landing page or prototype. A Tessl three-scenario eval measured 1.27x on Sonnet 4.6. It ships as one 9,390-byte SKILL.md, about 2,348 tokens. The Claude Code plugin copy (v1.1.0) is identical. Pill buttons still appeared on 10 of 21 pages in issue #1808, which is open. It gives no guidance for an existing design system. The head-to-head sits in UI/UX Pro Max vs Frontend Design.

3. Web Design Engineer

Recommended with caveats, 72, safety grade A, Moderate confidence. Web Design Engineer builds single-file HTML pages, slide decks and prototypes. Its Codex and Claude Code support is verified from user issues. It works best when you supply brand assets, references or a clear style anchor. Its cost is size: the skill file measures 8,852 tokens per load, and references add up to 21,000 more. SKILL.md points to React script tags that were removed. One user reported generic output in issue #14.

4. UI Skills

Recommended with caveats, 72, safety grade B, Moderate confidence. UI Skills runs focused review passes for motion, accessibility and page metadata. Its rules hard-code Tailwind, motion/react and Base UI, so other stacks get less from it. The fixing-metadata skill scored 1.00x in a Tessl eval, which means no measured gain. A pull request adding WCAG 2.2 (#37) closed without a maintainer reply. No agent run is verified yet, although it claims Claude Code, Cursor and Codex.

5. Build Awwwards-Quality Sites

Recommended with caveats, 70, safety grade A, Low confidence. Build Awwwards-Quality Sites is an art-direction and accessibility checklist for GSAP and Three.js pages. It sets a high visual bar and lists the checks to run before shipping. The skill is directive-only: it holds rules but no outcome tests. We found no verified agent run. It claims Claude Code, Codex and Cursor. Low confidence reflects that thin evidence, not a known defect.

6. UI/UX Pro Max

Conditional, 68, safety grade B, Moderate confidence. UI/UX Pro Max picks a palette, fonts and visual style by industry. Local Python search scripts do the lookup, and they make no network calls. It is verified in Claude Code and claims 14 more agents. Users report over-decorated output in issue #263. The script path breaks outside plugin installs, so a folder copy needs fixes. Our UI/UX Pro Max verdict lists the install routes that work.

7. Tailwind Design System

Conditional, 68, safety grade A, Low confidence. Tailwind Design System sets up Tailwind v4 tokens, dark mode and CVA component variants. It comes from the wshobson/agents repo. Two errors cost it points. Its examples use focus-visible:outline-none, which drops the outline in forced-colors mode. Some shadow sizing still follows Tailwind v3. No agent run is verified; it claims Claude Code, Gemini CLI and Antigravity.

8. Interface Review

Conditional, 68, safety grade C, Low confidence. Interface Review checks a pull request for interface regressions. Its Claude Code support is verified. Grade C reflects its behaviour: it runs git and gh, and it reads untrusted PR text. It needs the full Jakub Krehel pack to work. A hard-coded BASE...HEAD range (#34, open) can scan the wrong change in pull request and explicit-range reviews. Learn what a C safety grade means before you install it.

9. Impeccable

Conditional, 67, safety grade C, Moderate confidence. Impeccable runs critique, audit and polish passes on an existing web interface. It is verified in Claude Code and Codex. Grade C comes from an unsigned Rust engine that its hooks run after edits. About 85K tokens of references often never load (#744). Windows hooks fail (#878). Updated since review: skill-v4.7.0 shipped on 2026-10-19, and the verdict covers skill-v4.5.0.

10. Anthropic Design Plugin

Conditional, 66, safety grade C, Low confidence. Anthropic Design Plugin adds critique, WCAG audit and handoff templates for Cowork and Claude Code. It comes from the anthropics/knowledge-work-plugins repo. The plugin targets WCAG 2.1, not the current WCAG 2.2. Nine remote MCP servers come preconfigured, which drives the C grade. No agent run is verified yet.

11. Web Design Guidelines

Conditional, 66, safety grade C, Low confidence. Vercel's Web Design Guidelines is a 1.2 KB file that fetches the full guidelines at run time. It then checks your files and reports findings by file and line. Without web fetch it has no fallback (#300). It pulls from the unpinned main branch (#316), so the rules change without notice. The only verified run is an issue #300 pilot on Claude Sonnet 4.6 without fetch.

12. shadcn/ui

Conditional, 64, safety grade C, Moderate confidence. The shadcn skill helps an agent compose shadcn/ui components and run its CLI. It loads in single-package projects but fails at monorepo roots (#10283, #11271). It runs an unpinned npx shadcn@latest (#11269), which drives the C grade. Updated since review: shadcn@4.22.1 shipped on 2026-10-18, after the CLI 4.21.1 we reviewed.

Ranks 13 to 17 stay in the table above, with short notes here. Platform Design Skills (63, A) condenses Apple HIG, Material Design 3 and WCAG 2.2 into review rules. It stopped changing in March 2026. Taste Skill (62, B) gives React and Next.js pages a ban list and a design-read step. Its flagship file loads 21,813 tokens each time, measured from file size. Taste Skill has released v2.1.3 since our review. Figma Implement Design (59) and Figma (58) are verified in Codex only. Both depend on the Figma MCP. Landing Page Design (50) closes the list as the only Not Recommended skill.

Which Claude design skills should you avoid?

Avoid Landing Page Design (50, Not Recommended), because its rules ask for invented statistics. Treat OpenAI's Figma (58) and Figma Implement Design (59) as stale: their repo was deprecated in June 2026. Seven Claude design skills carry safety grade C.

• Landing Page Design (50, Not Recommended) is the one skill to skip. Its rules ask for organic-looking figures such as 47.2% and for invented brand names. It has no reduced-motion rule. A fix in pull request #1 is still unmerged.
• Figma (58) and Figma Implement Design (59) sit in openai/skills, which was deprecated in June 2026. The maintained successor is Figma's plugin in openai/plugins, which we have not evaluated. Both skills carry a localhost asset rule that ties them to a running Figma MCP.
• Platform Design Skills (63) froze in March 2026. It covers nothing newer than iOS 17. It misstates WCAG 2.4.13 and 2.5.8.

Seven skills carry safety grade C. They are Impeccable, Interface Review, Anthropic Design Plugin and Web Design Guidelines. The other three are shadcn/ui, Figma and Figma Implement Design. Grade C does not mean malicious. It means the skill runs code, calls the network or reads untrusted input in ways you need to check. Read how to vet a skill before installing it.

Which Claude design skills fit web pages, UX and design systems?

For new web pages, Frontend Design (76) and Web Design Engineer (72) lead. For UX research and handoff, Designer Skills Collection (78) leads. For design systems, UI/UX Pro Max and Tailwind Design System both score 68.

Web pages and landing pages

Five ranked skills target new pages. They differ in scope and weight.

• Frontend Design (76) gives the strongest visual direction for a new page.
• Web Design Engineer (72) builds single-file pages and decks.
• Build Awwwards-Quality Sites (70) adds art direction for GSAP and Three.js work.
• Taste Skill (62) loads a flagship file of about 87 KB whole, and it excludes dashboards.
• Landing Page Design (50) asks for invented figures, so skip it.

Dashboards suit Web Design Engineer and Frontend Design, which both list them as a use case.

UX research and product design

Designer Skills Collection leads this job. It writes personas, journey maps and usability test plans. Anthropic Design Plugin adds critique and handoff templates inside Cowork. Dedicated wireframing and usability-testing skills are not yet evaluated. Interface copy belongs to a separate job, ranked under UX writing skills, ranked.

Design systems and DESIGN.md

Four ranked skills work with a design system you already have.

• UI/UX Pro Max (68) picks a system's palette, fonts and style.
• Tailwind Design System (68) builds Tailwind v4 tokens and variants.
• Anthropic Design Plugin (66) audits and documents an existing system.
• shadcn/ui (64) composes components from the shadcn registry.

Frontend Design has no existing-system mode, so it fits new work only. DESIGN.md is a draft spec that Google open-sourced on 21 April 2026. It describes a design system in one file for agents to read. No DESIGN.md skill is evaluated yet.

Which Claude design skills check accessibility and review UI?

No Claude design skill is a WCAG compliance audit. Platform Design Skills (63) condenses WCAG 2.2 into review rules, and UI Skills (72) runs accessibility passes. For UI review, Impeccable (67) and Interface Review (68) lead.

AccessLint, which both snyk and composio rank, is not yet evaluated. For UI review, four skills do the work:

• Impeccable (67) runs critique, audit and polish passes.
• Interface Review (68) reviews pull requests; the full pack (70) returns one ranked findings table.
• Web Design Guidelines (66) runs a file-by-file and line-by-line rule pass.
• Designer Skills Collection (78) writes structured visual critiques.

Our accessibility checks read each skill's rules against the WCAG text. They are not a certification of any page the skill helps build.

Do Claude design skills work in Codex, Cursor and other agents?

Yes in Claude Code, but rarely beyond it. Nine of 18 Claude design skills have verified Claude Code runs and four have verified Codex runs. None is verified in Cursor, although eight claim it.

Claimed counts include the verified runs. Six skills have no verified agent at all. Three are Anthropic Design Plugin, Build Awwwards-Quality Sites and Landing Page Design. The others are Platform Design Skills, Tailwind Design System and UI Skills. Web Design Guidelines has one verified run, on Claude Sonnet 4.6 without fetch. Its SKILL.md implies any fetch-capable agent. A claim of Cursor support stays a claim until someone records a run. Design skills sit beside other picks in Claude Code skills, ranked.

What can Claude Design and Claude Code's /design do without a skill?

Claude Design is an Anthropic Labs product for designs, prototypes and slides. Claude Code's /design is a built-in research-preview skill that drafts editable artboards, then implements your pick. Both differ from SKILL.md design skills that shape an agent's code.

Claude Design is Anthropic's design product, launched on 2026-04-17 as an Anthropic Labs research preview. It is open to Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise plans. It produces designs, prototypes, slides and one-pagers. It builds a design system from your codebase and files. Anthropic says it hands a bundle to Claude Code "with a single instruction".

Claude Code's /design arrived in week 34 (August 17 to 21, 2026). The official digest describes it this way:

The /design skill brings Claude Design's artboard workflow into the CLI and Claude Code Desktop, built on artifacts

• Plans: Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise, as a research preview.
• Version: Claude Code v2.1.234 or later.
• Output: editable artboards, then code for the option you pick.

Claude Academy shows a third route: building a custom design-elevation skill. Its example uses an 8-phase protocol, 400+ techniques and 5 reference files. A SKILL.md design skill such as Frontend Design shapes the code Claude Code writes next. That holds after a Claude Design handoff and after a /design pick.

How do you install a Claude design skill?

Install a Claude design skill through Claude Code's plugin marketplace, the skills CLI, or a folder copy. Copied folders go in ~/.claude/skills/ or a project's .claude/skills/. Claude loads the skill when a request matches its description.

1. Pick a skill from the ranked table and open its verdict for the exact install line.
2. Add a plugin marketplace in Claude Code, for example /plugin marketplace add Owl-Listener/designer-skills. Anthropic's skills install with /plugin marketplace add anthropics/skills.
3. Use the skills CLI from skills.sh instead, with npx skills add <owner/repo>.
4. Copy the skill folder into ~/.claude/skills/ for personal use or .claude/skills/ for one project.
5. Trigger the skill with a matching request, or type /skill-name to call it directly.

Both marketplace commands come from the repos' READMEs, checked on 2026-10-21. The folder paths come from the Claude Code skills docs. Per-agent setup lives in our guide to install skills in Claude Code. Claude app users can turn on skills in the Claude app. You can build your own design skill when no ranked pick fits.

Where are the best Claude design skills on GitHub?

All 18 reviewed Claude design skills live in public GitHub repos. The largest by stars are anthropics/skills, nextlevelbuilder/ui-ux-pro-max-skill and shadcn-ui/ui. Stars measure popularity, not quality: the top-scoring skill has 2,809 stars.

Star counts are a snapshot taken on 2026-09-30. The top-scoring skill sits in the third-smallest repo. Anthropic's Frontend Design sits in its largest repo. Treat stars as reach, and use the verdict for fit.

Common questions

Is there a design skill for Claude?

Yes. We reviewed 18 Claude design skills, and Designer Skills Collection and Frontend Design lead with Recommended verdicts.

Are Claude design skills free?

Yes, all 18 sit in public GitHub repos at no cost. Licences vary: MIT, Apache-2.0, or none recorded for the anthropics/skills folder, vercel-labs/agent-skills and openai/skills.

Is a design skill the same as a plugin or an MCP server?

No: a plugin bundles skills, subagents, hooks and MCP servers, and an MCP server connects live tools. Our guides explain what a SKILL.md file contains and compare skills vs MCP servers.

Is there a logo or graphic design skill for Claude?

Yes, though none ranks on this page. Canvas Design, Algorithmic Art and ImageGen cover graphic design.

Does Claude Code have a skill for creating skills?

Yes, Anthropic's Skill Creator builds new skills. It scores 57, Conditional, with safety grade C in Anthropic's Skill Creator verdict.

How do you improve Claude Code's design output?

Install a ranked design skill, or write one as Claude Academy's design-elevation example does. Our guide shows how to write a custom design skill.

Is there a Claude design skill for presentations?

Yes: our review of the PPTX skill for slide decks gives it 71, Recommended with caveats. Claude Design makes slides too.

What does the community report?

Hacker News items and GitHub issues such as #1808, #263 and #744 sit beside our scores.

Every ranked hub sits under all best Agent Skills, ranked.