A design direction is a named starting aesthetic — a pre-formed point of view on type, color, spacing and feel that the agent builds from instead of a blank default. There are 17, each with a preview, and you pick one at project creation or steer away from it after.
What a direction does
A direction is a starting taste, not a template lock — it hands the agent a coherent aesthetic (a quiet editorial system, a loud brutalist one, a soft rounded one) so the first build lands in a style rather than a generic middle. The design system's real decisions — tokens, components, rules — still come from the work itself.
Picking one
At project creation the direction cards show the 17 previews — pick the one that feels closest to where the design should start. It shapes the first build's tokens and components; everything after is still steerable as usual. Blank leaves the direction to the brief.
Steering a direction
A direction is a starting point, not a cage:
- Steer away — a follow-up ("darker, less rounded") moves the system off the direction's defaults
- The kit still applies — the gate's rules don't change with the style
- It inherits forward — the saved system carries the direction's seeds into the next project
What it's good at
- A fast start — landing in a style instead of a blank default
- Exploration — the same brief across two directions, compared
- Consistency — the same direction seeds similar projects
- A vocabulary — "brutalist but readable" gives the brief a known shape
Tip: Pick the direction that's nearest to where you want to end up, not the one that looks best — steering closes the gap, and starting close beats starting perfect.