pi-ux

Anti-slop UI/UX design discipline for the Pi coding agent. Anchors a lintable DESIGN.md, runs deterministic slop-audit gates (APCA contrast + tokens + states + slop tells), and works with text-only models (DeepSeek-v4, GLM-5.2, Kimi K3) — agy/Gemini/Claude is optional polish, never the review gate.

Why

AI-generated UI converges on the same defaults — purple/indigo glow, shadow-heavy cards, missing focus/disabled/error states — because under vague direction, models reach for high-frequency statistical patterns. Slop is an ownership problem: "the design has no owner at the system level." The fix is shift-left: own the system in a DESIGN.md, then gate deterministically.

Text-only models now lead frontend (Kimi K3, an open MIT model, is #1 on the Arena.ai Frontend Code Arena, ahead of Claude Fable 5). Inside a fully-specified system they produce non-slop UI — which means the review gate can be mechanical, not a vision-LLM call.

Install

pi install npm:@bacnh85/pi-ux

Pi auto-discovers the extension and skill.

Usage

/ux              # toggle / show status
/ux strict       # guardrail + enforce ux_audit gate before handoff (default)
/ux lite         # guardrail only (ideation, exploration)
/ux off          # disable
/ux status       # current + default mode
/ux default lite # persist default mode

The guardrail is injected into the system prompt on every agent start while active. Turn off with /ux off or the phrases "stop ux" / "normal mode".

Modes

Mode	Behavior
off	No guardrail
lite	Anti-slop guardrail enforced; audit gate recommended but not blocking
strict (default)	Guardrail + enforce ux_audit gate before declaring a screen done

The method

The injected skill enforces Constraint-First Design Generation:

0. Own the system via DESIGN.md — a repo-root DESIGN.md (Google Labs open standard: YAML token frontmatter + rationale) is the single source of truth. Lint it before generating:

   npx @google/design.md lint DESIGN.md
   

   If absent, reuse a preset (ux-presets skill: shadcn/Material/Radix) or scaffold one once. pi-ux orchestrates @google/design.md via shell-out — not a runtime dependency.
1. 5-field brief per screen — user job, inventory, token constraints, required states, one reference.
2. Generate fast, converge early — text-only models inside the locked system; 2-loop convergence trigger.
3. Normalise the draft back into tokens/elevation/spacing.
4. Slop-audit gate — run ux_audit (measurable): APCA contrast, token coverage, state coverage, slop tells.

The ux_audit tool

Deterministic slop-audit — no model needed, all gates are computable:

ux_audit css="..." pairs=[{fg:"#111",bg:"#fff",label:"body",weight:400,size:16,min:4.5}]

Gate	What it checks
Contrast (APCA)	Perceptual APCA Lc per fg/bg pair (Lc ≥75 body, ≥45 large-bold, ≥30 non-text). hex or oklch(). Optional weight/size set the threshold. WCAG 2.x ratio shown as a compliance sidecar.
Tokens	Hardcoded hex outside :root token defs; box-shadow not built from var(--…) tokens
States	Interactive selectors (button/a/input/…/[role=button]) missing :focus-visible or :disabled
Slop tells	Named AI signatures: glassmorphism (backdrop-filter), gradient orbs, neon glow, the shadcn default-card reflex (rounded-2xl+shadow-lg+p-6), 1px gray card borders

Returns pass/fail per gate + a formatted report. In strict mode this is the gate that blocks handoff.

Why APCA over WCAG 2.x: APCA is perceptual and accounts for font weight/size; it catches dark-theme + thin-type slop that the legacy WCAG ratio misses. Example: #aaa on #1e1e1e scores APCA Lc -54.4 (fails ≥75) but WCAG 7.18:1 (passes ≥4.5) — APCA catches what WCAG can't.

Model routing (deterministic-first)

The skill tells the agent which model to use for each step. The gate is mechanical, not a vision-LLM call:

Step	Best tool/model
Define system (DESIGN.md)	Reuse a preset OR agy_execute mode=plan pro-high (Gemini) once
Lint system	npx @google/design.md lint DESIGN.md (shell-out)
Per-screen brief	GLM-5.2 (1M ctx)
Generate variants	DeepSeek-v4, GLM-5.2, or Kimi K3 (text-only, inside constraints)
Normalise into system	DeepSeek-v4 or GLM-5.2
Slop audit	ux_audit tool (deterministic) + DESIGN.md lint
Optional polish (never a gate)	agy_execute mode=accept-edits sonnet (Claude)

The inversion rule: the cheaper/weaker the model, the MORE you must externalise constraints. The deterministic-first principle: don't spend vision-model quota on what ux_audit computes for free.

Skills

• ux-design — the Constraint-First method + deterministic-first model routing (auto-injected by the hook when active).
• ux-presets — reference design-system presets for Step 0: a lintable DESIGN.md starter, the shadcn/Material/Radix reuse table, and a CSS-only :root fallback. Reference only — no bundled CSS.

Configuration

Environment variables (override config file):

Variable	Default	Effect
PI_UX_DEFAULT_MODE	strict	Default mode on startup
PI_UX_QUIET_STARTUP	unset	Suppress the startup toast
PI_UX_HIDE_STATUS	unset	Hide the status-bar indicator

Config file: ~/.config/pi-ux/config.json (or $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/pi-ux/):

{ "defaultMode": "strict", "quietStartup": false, "hideStatus": false }

License

MIT