Better Design: Open source Claude Design

Turn your AI coding IDE into a design engineer. Better Design works with MCP-compatible agents and editors like Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code/GitHub Copilot, Claude Desktop, and claude.ai. It is a design MCP server, AI design-system registry, and UI review layer for generating polished product interfaces from prompts.

Website · Design systems · Setup · Architecture

What is Better Design?

Better Design gives AI coding agents the design context they usually miss: design tokens, component code, UI principles, icon direction, accessibility checks, and visual-design review rules.

Think of it as a Claude Design-style workflow for your own codebase:

1. Pick the product direction: Linear, Supabase, Vercel, Airbnb, Stripe, Apple, Notion, Figma, or another curated design system.
2. Feed your AI agent the right globals.css, semantic tokens, component overrides, icon set, spacing, typography, shadows, radius, and motion language.
3. Ask Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code/GitHub Copilot, Claude Desktop, claude.ai, or another MCP-compatible coding agent to build the interface.
4. Have the MCP review the output against accessibility and design principles before you ship it.

Instead of “AI-looking UI,” you get interfaces that look like they were built from a real product design system.

Why Better Design?

• Claude Design-style workflow, open MCP. Bring the artifact-first design loop people expect from Claude Design into Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code/GitHub Copilot, Claude Desktop, claude.ai, and any MCP-compatible client.
• Design systems, not vague vibes. Each system includes semantic CSS tokens plus production component code, so generated UI uses real implementation details instead of guessed colors.
• AI UI generation with guardrails. The MCP can load principles for hierarchy, spacing, typography, depth, motion, forms, and accessibility exactly when the agent needs them.
• Self-review before handoff. get-review-rules gives your agent a WCAG and visual-design checklist so it can catch missing focus states, weak hierarchy, bad contrast, and inconsistent spacing.
• Built for AI coding workflows. Better Design speaks the language agents already use to build modern product UI: tokens, components, accessibility, hierarchy, spacing, and motion.

How it works

Better Design has two layers: an always-on Design Intelligence layer and an on-demand Scaffold layer.

1. Design Intelligence — always active for UI work

When your agent builds UI, Better Design can load the relevant product-design principles and review rules:

You: "Add a settings page with a form"

AI: calls get-ui-principle("spacing") + get-ui-principle("hierarchy")
    → writes the page
    → calls get-review-rules("accessibility") + get-review-rules("visual-design")
    → fixes contrast, labels, focus states, spacing, and hierarchy

Result: A settings page with accessible inputs, clear grouping, visible states, and consistent rhythm.

2. Scaffold — design-system matching for new UI

When starting a product, page, or component set, say "use better-design" and the MCP finds a matching design system:

You: "Build a fintech dashboard in the style of Stripe. use better-design"

AI: calls resolve-design-system("fintech dashboard, Stripe")
    → loads design-system docs, CSS tokens, and component code
    → resolves a matching icon library
    → builds with semantic tokens instead of raw colors

Result: Indigo accents, premium shadows, fintech typography, consistent cards, inputs, buttons, and charts.

What the MCP gives your agent

Available Design Systems

Better Design ships with curated design systems for common product categories: developer tools, fintech dashboards, marketplaces, productivity apps, consumer apps, media products, and enterprise software.

Each design system includes a full globals.css token layer plus overriding component code.

Architecture

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  Your AI agent or IDE: Claude Code / Cursor / GitHub Copilot    │
└─────────────────────────┬───────────────────────────────────────┘
                          │
                          ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│              MCP Server (packages/shared/src/mcp)               │
│                                                                 │
│  Design Intelligence, always active for UI work:                │
│  • get-ui-principle → load relevant design principles           │
│  • get-review-rules → accessibility + visual design checklist   │
│                                                                 │
│  Scaffold, on demand with "use better-design":                  │
│  • resolve-design-system → semantic search with embeddings      │
│  • get-design-system-docs → fetch tokens + component code       │
│  • resolve-icon-library → match icon set to design personality  │
│  • search-icons → find specific icons via Iconify               │
└─────────────────────────┬───────────────────────────────────────┘
                          │
              ┌───────────┴───────────┐
              ▼                       ▼
┌──────────────────────┐  ┌──────────────────────┐
│  Stdio Transport     │  │  Remote Transport    │
│  Claude Desktop,     │  │  /api/mcp            │
│  Claude Code, Cursor,│  │  claude.ai, cloud    │
│  VS Code/Copilot     │  │                      │
└──────────────────────┘  └──────────────────────┘

Setup

Prerequisites

• Bun for local development
• A Neon Postgres database (free tier works)
• Gemini API key for design-system embeddings

1. Clone and install

git clone https://github.com/marvkr/better-design.git
cd better-design
bun install

2. Configure environment

cp packages/web/.env.example packages/web/.env

DATABASE_URL=postgresql://...@...neon.tech/...?sslmode=require
GEMINI_API_KEY=your-gemini-key

3. Push the database schema

cd packages/web && bun db:push

4. Run the dev server

bun dev

5. Optional: connect the stdio MCP to Claude Desktop

cd packages/mcp && bun run build

Add the local MCP server to ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "better-design": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/better-design/packages/mcp/dist/index.js"]
    }
  }
}

Restart Claude Desktop. You can now ask Claude to use Better Design while building UI.

Remote MCP: The web app also exposes a