AI agent workflow
Claude Code is strong at repository-scale changes, which makes design memory important. DESIGN.md gives it a written visual contract: how dense screens should be, which components to reuse, how tokens map to UI, and what visual moves are off-limits.
Claude Code should treat DESIGN.md as the design source of truth next to engineering instructions. That matters for dashboards, settings pages, onboarding, profile surfaces, forms, and public pages where the implementation can otherwise drift across multiple files.
After Claude Code edits a UI, review the result against the file: type hierarchy, button variants, spacing, color usage, focus states, empty states, and responsive behavior. When a design issue repeats, add the rule to DESIGN.md instead of writing a one-off prompt.
Move from this landing page into deeper DESIGN.md references, examples, and guides.
DESIGN.md is a persistent visual brief for Claude Code — a Markdown file that defines color roles, typography, spacing, component behavior, and page patterns. Claude Code reads it alongside CLAUDE.md, giving it engineering and design context before implementing UI across multiple files.
CLAUDE.md handles engineering rules: commands, architecture, coding standards, and technical constraints. DESIGN.md handles visual rules: colors, type scale, spacing, component behavior, and anti-patterns. Keeping them separate makes each file shorter, clearer, and easier to maintain independently.
Include DESIGN.md in your repo root and reference it at the start of every UI session. For large sessions, ask Claude Code to list the five most relevant DESIGN.md rules before implementing, then check each modified file against those rules after the session. This turns review into a checklist rather than open-ended visual evaluation.
Yes. That is its primary value for Claude Code. When sessions touch five or more files across a feature surface, DESIGN.md acts as the shared reference that keeps spacing, component reuse, and visual hierarchy consistent across all generated files — preventing the drift that happens when each file is generated independently.