AugmentClaude

Apply Aesthetic

Apply a design direction—archetype or brand system—to match a specific look and feel.

Installation

  1. Make sure Claude is on your device and in your terminal.

    Skills load from ~/.claude/skills/ when Claude Code starts up — so you need it on your machine first. If you don't have it yet, install it once with the command below, then run claude in any terminal to verify.

    One-time setup
    npm i -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code

    Already have it? Skip ahead.

  2. Paste into Claude Code or into your terminal.

    This copies the whole skill folder into ~/.claude/skills/apply-aesthetic-plugin87/ — the SKILL.md plus any scripts, reference docs, or templates the skill ships with. Safe default: works for every skill.

    Faster alternative (instruction-only skills)

    Skips the clone and grabs only the SKILL.md file. Don't use this if the skill ships Python scripts, reference markdowns, or asset templates — they won't be downloaded and the skill will fail when it tries to load them.

    Quick install (SKILL.md only)
    Sign up to copy
  3. Restart Claude Code.

    Quit and reopen Claude Code (or any other agent that loads from ~/.claude/skills/). New skills are picked up on startup.

  4. Just ask Claude.

    Skills auto-activate when your request matches the skill's description — no slash command needed. Trigger phrases live in the skill's own frontmatter; you can read them in the “What this skill does” section above.

Prefer to read the source first? Open on GitHub.

When Claude uses it

Apply a visual direction — an archetype (high-end agency, editorial minimal, brutalist, soft-SaaS, dark-tech) or one of 138 named design systems (apple, linear-app, stripe, vercel, notion, material, shadcn, spotify, tesla…) — by resolving it into the token system. Use when the user wants a specific look/vibe/brand feel, or asks to make a design feel premium/expensive/non-generic.

What this skill does

Skill: Apply Aesthetic

Choose and apply a design direction without breaking accessibility.

Steps

  1. Brief Inference first (mandatory) — before any tokens, name it: industry/domain, audience & tone, the one mood adjective the result must earn, motion depth, and the layout-family sequence (taste/design-taste.md → Brief Inference + Variance Mandate). Generating before deciding = slop.
  2. Pick a direction in taste/aesthetic-systems.md:
    • An archetype (recipe mapped to our tokens), or
    • A named library system — browse with python3 scripts/design_systems.py list (or search <term> / show <name>); specs live in design-systems/library/<name>/DESIGN.md.
  3. Apply the Library Contract (in aesthetic-systems.md): re-point semantic.* tokens to the chosen system's color roles; map typography/spacing/radius/shadow/motion to tokens/*.json.
  4. Verify contrast of every mapped color pair (scripts/contrast.py / a11y-audit). A brand value that fails must be adjusted — taste never overrides POUR.
  5. Add motion per taste/motion-choreography.md; run the pre-flight aesthetic check in design-taste.md.

Output

Updated/overridden semantic tokens + notes on type/space/motion, then render via design-code. Confirm the result passes both the aesthetic check and accessibility.

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