Jakub Krehel skills review: verdict, safety and alternatives
Jakub Krehel's skills are an MIT pack of interface skills for coding agents, split by concern. We rate the pack Recommended with caveats, 70/100, with safety grade A. The rules are specific and trigger cleanly. Several copied recipes carried accessibility and layout errors at the commit we reviewed.
- Pack
- Jakub Krehel's Interface Skills (jakubkrehel/skills)
- Verdict
- Recommended with caveats
- Score
- 70/100
- Confidence
- Moderate
- Caveat
- Reference recipes carried verified accessibility and layout errors at the reviewed commit
- Safety grade
- A at commit 267330e (Markdown, YAML and JSON only)
- Best for
- Frontend and design engineers who want UI reviewed against named rules split by concern, and who check copied recipes
- Poor fit
- Teams that gate on WCAG 2 contrast and copy recipes verbatim
- Reviewed version
- commit 267330e, plugin 1.6.3 (no tags)
- Review date
- 2026-09-30
- Works in (verified)
- Claude Code
- Works in (claimed)
- Codex, opencode
- Since review
- issue #40 fixed (PR #41); 3 new skills, one with scripts; plugin 1.13.2
Get the skill: jakubkrehel/skills on GitHub · better-interface SKILL.md at the reviewed commit · skills.sh listing
Changed since our review (checked 2026-10-21): the maintainer merged PR #41 and closed issue #40 as completed. Three skills were added, and technical-drawing now ships JavaScript and .cjs scripts. Safety grade A covers only plugin 1.6.3 at commit 267330e, reviewed 2026-09-30, because we have not reviewed the new scripts.
Members install separately. Roles come from the README; installs from skills.sh at review.
| Member | Runs | What it covers | Installs at review | Verdict page |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| better-ui | auto | radius, optical alignment, shadows, icon states, animation | 29.6K | not evaluated |
| better-typography | auto | type scale, spacing, font features, wrapping | 26.2K | not evaluated |
| better-colors | auto | palettes, semantic tokens, formats, contrast | 24.7K | not evaluated |
| better-layout | auto | grouping, alignment, responsive structure | 23.0K | not evaluated |
| better-interface | auto | combined review across six domains | 22.7K | not evaluated |
| better-accessibility | auto | keyboard, focus, ARIA, forms, motion, zoom (WCAG 2.2) | 22.1K | not evaluated |
| better-writing | auto | labels, errors, empty states, confirmations | 21.8K | not evaluated |
| interface-review | user | branch, PR or uncommitted change review | 12.9K | Interface Review verdict: Conditional, 68 |
| variant | user | builds and compares component variants | 9.4K | not evaluated |
| explain-interface | user | explains how a site or effect was built | 9.2K | not evaluated |
| break | user | stress-tests a component in every scenario | 8.7K | not evaluated |
| build-design, state-machine, technical-drawing | added after review | Figma-to-UI, component states, technical drawings | n/a | not evaluated |
Install the whole pack with npx skills add jakubkrehel/skills.
What are Jakub Krehel's skills?
*Jakub Krehel's skills are a pack of interface skills for coding agents, split by concern. Seven better- skills cover accessibility, color, layout, typography, UI polish, copy and review. Other members review changes and render component states.**
Each member is an Agent Skill, a SKILL.md file an agent loads when a task matches. See what an Agent Skill is for the format. Jakub Krehel is the founding design engineer at Interfere and publishes at jakub.kr.
The pack is free under MIT. At review it held 65 files: 11 SKILL.md, 37 references and 17 others, about 343 KB of Markdown. Skills.sh counted 210.2K installs.
Which Jakub Krehel skills run automatically, and which do you call?
*The seven better- skills in Jakub Krehel's pack run automatically when the task matches. Break, explain-interface, interface-review, variant and state-machine run only when you call them. Interface-review hands findings to better-interface.**
- Automatic (model-invoked): better-accessibility, better-colors, better-interface, better-layout, better-typography, better-ui and better-writing.
- User-invoked at review: break, explain-interface, interface-review and variant, each set with
disable-model-invocation. - Added after review: build-design, state-machine (user-invoked per the README) and technical-drawing.
Interface-review scopes a review to a branch; better-interface ranks the findings.
Are Jakub Krehel's skills worth installing?
Yes, with caveats. Jakub Krehel's skills score 70/100, Recommended with caveats, at Moderate confidence. Rules are specific and trigger cleanly, but about nine verified recipe errors sat unfixed at the reviewed commit.
The rules name exact values, severities and fix order. Reference recipes carried verified accessibility and layout errors at the reviewed commit. The worst case is an agent removing a focus ring as a polish fix.
| Criterion | Score |
|---|---|
| Effectiveness | 76 |
| Reliability | 64 |
| Safety | 80 |
| Efficiency | 68 |
| Compatibility | 78 |
| Maintainability | 45 |
| Setup friction | 82 |
| Recipe correctness | 55 |
| Trigger discrimination | 76 |
| Accessibility of own examples | 52 |
| Maintainer fix uptake | 40 |
| Adoption cost | 72 |
| Instruction weight vs value | 70 |
| Overall | 70/100 |
Read how verdict scores are built, or compare the top-ranked UI and frontend design skills.
How many tokens do Jakub Krehel's skills use?
Jakub Krehel's better-interface skill loads 2,383 tokens, measured from file size. Our estimate for a combined better-interface review is about 14,000 tokens before references. We estimate a typical screen review at 50,000 input tokens.
| Figure | Tokens | Label |
|---|---|---|
| better-interface SKILL.md per load | 2,383 | measured file size per load |
| better-interface folder | 3,020 | measured file size |
| Combined review, orchestrator plus six domain skills | about 14,000 before references | our estimate |
| One-screen review in a React and Tailwind app | 50,000 in, 6,000 out | our estimate for a typical task |
| Same call with the skill counted in | 53,383 in, 6,000 out | our estimate plus measured file size |
We assume five such reviews per week.
What changed since our review?
Jakub Krehel's pack changed after our 2026-09-30 review. The maintainer fixed the four bugs in issue #40, added three skills and moved the plugin to 1.13.2. The verdict stays Recommended with caveats, 70.
Repository-confirmed on 2026-10-21; not re-evaluated.
- 28 new commits, up to HEAD 4c66b1f on 2026-10-13.
- PR #41 merged on 2026-10-06, by the maintainer. It fixed the focus outline, contrast check, spinner motion and an error example.
- Issue #40 closed as completed on 2026-10-07, with the reply "Thanks for flagging these, updated!"
- Issues #32, #35 and #36 closed as "not planned" that day, with no confirmed file fix.
- PR #21 and issue #22 stay open.
- Three skills arrived: build-design, state-machine and technical-drawing.
- Technical-drawing ships 8 asset files (7 JavaScript, 1 HTML) and 5 .cjs scripts.
- Stars rose from 7,385 at review to 8,074.
Are Jakub Krehel's skills safe to install?
Yes, Jakub Krehel's skills are safe to install at the reviewed commit, with safety grade A. That version held only Markdown, YAML and JSON. The new technical-drawing skill adds JavaScript files we have not scanned.
Our review of the files at commit 267330e found eight facts:
- No scripts, hooks, credentials or MCP config shipped.
- Network indicators were only the homepage and repository URLs in plugin.json.
- Manifests covered Claude Code, Codex (
agents/openai.yaml) and opencode (opencode.json). - Four skills set
disable-model-invocation, so they run only on request. - Explain-interface suggests
chrome-devtools-mcp@latest, an unpinned third-party package (issue #36). - Break and variant leave temporary harness pages in the project until you ask for removal.
- Better-interface and interface-review stay read-only unless you ask them to implement findings.
- Explain-interface describes no prompt-injection handling for fetched pages.
The new technical-drawing files include viewer.js, worker.js, geometry.js and build-viewer.cjs. Our grade covers none of them. Run through our skill vetting checklist before installing the current main branch.
What does the community report about Jakub Krehel's skills?
The community reports on Jakub Krehel's skills split two ways. A trigger test found 100% precision and 87% recall on Claude Haiku 4.5. Issues #40, #32, #35 and PR #21 documented recipe errors.
| Source | Date | Finding | Strength |
|---|---|---|---|
| Issue #22 | 2026-09 | Trigger test on better-typography: 100% precision, 87% recall | strong |
| Issue #40 | 2026-09 | Four hand-checked bugs, including a removed focus ring | strong |
| PR #21 | 2026-08 | Five errata from real agent sessions; fix unmerged | strong |
| Issue #32 | 2026-09 | Scroller recipe subtracts padding twice | strong |
| Issue #35 | 2026-09 | Icon buttons lack accessible names | strong |
| Issue #25 | 2026-09 | Explain-interface equates z-index with paint order | weak |
| Issue #37 | 2026-09 | Break forces page-level use client in Next.js | weak |
| Issue #34 | 2026-09 | Removed-signal scan hard-codes BASE...HEAD | weak |
| Issue #36 | 2026-09 | DevTools MCP setup uses an unpinned package | weak |
| sokosumi PR 4193 | 2026-09 | Production repo installed ten skills | weak |
| settlr PR 21 | 2026-09 | Project vendored the skills unchanged | weak |
| Issue #8 | 2026-07 | User praise, no specifics | weak |
| PR #19 | 2026-08 | Description trim got no maintainer reply | weak |
The trigger test ran 200 attempts, with zero false positives in 120 near-neighbour prompts. The README claims accessibility compliance, but no published test confirms it.
What are the known failures in Jakub Krehel's skills?
The known failures in Jakub Krehel's skills were recipe errors. They include a removed focus ring, a contrast crossover that failed WCAG AA, and broken layout math. Issue #40's four fixes landed on 2026-10-06, while PR #21 remains unmerged.
| Failure | Source | At review | On 2026-10-21 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input recipe removes the focus ring | #40 | present | fixed by PR #41 |
| APCA crossover presented as WCAG contrast | #40 | present | fixed by PR #41 |
| Reduced-motion switch stops spinners | #40 | present | fixed by PR #41 |
| Letters-only name validation example | #40 | present | fixed by PR #41 |
| Scroller padding subtracted twice | #32 | present | closed not planned, fix unconfirmed |
| Icon buttons without accessible names | #35 | present | closed not planned, fix unconfirmed |
| Unpinned DevTools MCP package | #36 | present | closed not planned, fix unconfirmed |
| Five errata, including Tailwind v4 assumptions | PR #21 | open | open, unmerged |
| Mechanism-named prompts fire 9 of 18 times | #22 | open | open |
The recall gap hits prompts that name a CSS mechanism. Our guide on when a skill does not trigger shows how to name the skill directly.
Which agents do Jakub Krehel's skills work with?
Jakub Krehel's skills work in Claude Code, the only verified agent. The repository ships manifests for Codex and opencode, so both are claimed, but no field use there is documented.
| Agent | Status | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Claude Code | verified | issues #21 and #22, two downstream repos |
| Codex | claimed | agents/openai.yaml per skill |
| opencode | claimed | opencode.json pointing at skills/ |
| Cursor | directory claim only | listed by agenticskills.io; no manifest in the repo |
Several recipes assume Tailwind v4 without saying so (PR #21, item 5). See the skills ranked for Claude Code for other picks.
How do you install Jakub Krehel's skills?
Install Jakub Krehel's skills with npx skills add jakubkrehel/skills. In Claude Code, run /plugin marketplace add jakubkrehel/skills, then /plugin install interfaces@interfaces as a separate command. No API keys are needed; the npx route needs Node.js.
- Run
npx skills add jakubkrehel/skillsfor any supported agent. - Run
/plugin marketplace add jakubkrehel/skillsin Claude Code instead, for the plugin form. - Enter
/plugin install interfaces@interfaceson its own line, since pasted pairs fail (PR #17). - Install from GitHub, not the craftwork.design mirror command, so you get the maintainer's current files.
Our step-by-step Claude Code skills setup covers folders and scopes.
How do you use Jakub Krehel's skills?
*Use Jakub Krehel's skills by writing components as usual; the better- rules apply on their own. Call better-interface for a ranked screen review and interface-review for a branch or pull request.**
- Build components as usual while the better-* rules apply polish (daily).
- Ask better-interface for a ranked one-screen review (weekly).
- Call interface-review on a pull request before merging (per PR).
- Ask explain-interface how a site effect was built (occasional).
Test it yourself before you trust the recipes:
- Install better-accessibility and better-colors.
- Ask the agent to style a scaled 16px input.
- Ask it to pick a text colour on a mid-lightness background.
- Check focus visibility and WCAG 2 contrast in the result.
What are the alternatives to Jakub Krehel's skills?
The closest alternatives to Jakub Krehel's skills are six evaluated design packs. Designer Skills (78) covers the full design process. UI/UX Pro Max (68) and Impeccable (67) guide builds, and Taste Skill (62) sets page direction.
| Alternative | Verdict | Score | Grade | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Designer Skills verdict | Recommended | 78 | B | research plans, specs and critiques |
| UI/UX Pro Max review | Conditional | 68 | B | palette, fonts and style for a new page |
| Impeccable verdict | Conditional | 67 | C | critique, audit and polish passes |
| Taste Skill review | Conditional | 62 | B | landing-page direction in React or Next.js |
| Anthropic Design plugin verdict | Conditional | 66 | C | critiques, handoff specs and copy reviews |
| Emil Kowalski's skills collection | Not rated here | n/a | n/a | UI animation and motion review |
What is the interfaces plugin for Claude Code?
The interfaces plugin for Claude Code is the same skill pack with a plugin and marketplace manifest. Plugin installs namespace each command, so the Interface Review skill runs as /interfaces:interface-review.
Its homepage is interfaces.dev. Plugin.json read 1.6.3 at review and 1.13.2 on 2026-10-21. Craftwork.design lists "c0588bb" as a version, though that string is a commit.
Where are Jakub Krehel's skills on GitHub?
Jakub Krehel's skills live on GitHub in jakubkrehel/skills, under MIT. We reviewed commit 267330e, plugin version 1.6.3. On 2026-10-21 the repository had 8,074 stars, 14 skills and plugin version 1.13.2.
- Repository: jakubkrehel/skills, created 2026-07-10.
- Reviewed commit: 267330e, dated 2026-08-29.
- Popularity: 7,385 stars and 274 forks at review; 8,074 stars and 310 forks on 2026-10-21.
- Directory counts differ: agenticskills.io shows 8,038 stars and craftwork.design shows 7.8K.
- Contributors: jakubkrehel with 122 commits and an automated claude account with 6.
- Releases: none, and no git tags.
Common questions
How do Jakub Krehel's skills differ from Make Interfaces Feel Better?
Make Interfaces Feel Better is his older all-in-one polish skill, in a separate repo with 3,740 stars. The pack splits that material into focused better-* skills.
Are Jakub Krehel's skills free?
Yes. They are MIT-licensed.
Which Jakub Krehel skill reviews a pull request?
Interface Review does, as a user-invoked command. We rate it Conditional, 68.
Do Jakub Krehel's skills replace an accessibility audit?
No. Their own examples carried accessibility errors at review, so check every copied recipe.
Do Jakub Krehel's skills work in Codex?
Codex is claimed through agents/openai.yaml. No Codex run is documented.