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Creation surfaces and skill modes

Parent: spec.md · Siblings: architecture.md · skills-protocol.md · agent-adapters.md

Open Design has two related taxonomies:

  • The New Project UI exposes six creation tabs: Prototype, Live Artifact, Deck, Template, Media, and Other. Media then selects Image, Video, or Audio.
  • A SKILL.md carries one registry mode: prototype, deck, template, design-system, image, video, or audio.

They are intentionally not one-to-one. UI tabs describe the workflow a user starts; skill modes describe how the daemon indexes and routes an instruction bundle. The source of truth for the UI taxonomy is CreateTab and MediaSurface in NewProjectPanel.tsx. The daemon parser and normalization rules live in skills.ts.

Creation tab Project metadata Skill routing Main distinction
Prototype kind: prototype Default prototype skill, replaced by a selected design template Responsive web, mobile, tablet, or desktop-app interface work
Live Artifact kind: prototype, intent: live-artifact A live-artifact-capable prototype skill High-fidelity, data-bearing or connector-backed artifact
Deck kind: deck Default deck skill, replaced by a selected design template Slide navigation plus presentation export paths
Template kind: template A user-saved project template Starts from a template created through Share rather than the built-in rendering catalogue
Media kind: image, video, or audio Matching media-mode skill Provider/model, aspect, duration, voice, and prompt-template controls
Other kind: other No required skill Free-form project surface

Prototype

Prototype is the general interface-design path. The user chooses one or more platform targets, fidelity, optional OS-widget or landing-page options, a design system, and optionally a rendering template from /api/design-templates.

A selected Start from template replaces the tab's default skill as the project's primary skillId. At run time the daemon resolves that id across the functional-skill and design-template roots and injects the selected template's SKILL.md; it does not automatically compose the default prototype skill with the template. The catalogue/API separation is documented in skills-protocol.md.

Live Artifact

Live Artifact is a dedicated UI workflow backed by prototype-shaped project metadata. It records intent: live-artifact, forces high fidelity, prefers the live-artifact skill when present, and exposes connector configuration. Code that branches on project kind alone must therefore also check the intent.

Deck

Deck uses deck skills and deck-mode design templates. Speaker-note preference is stored in project metadata. Preview and export behavior belongs to the deck runtime and the selected template; it is not inferred from a historical list of default deck names.

Template

The Template tab lists templates the user previously saved through Share. It does not use the bundled design-templates/ catalogue as a fallback. A saved template may carry its own platform, animation, and design-system choices.

This is distinct from a SKILL.md whose registry mode is template: registry modes classify instruction bundles, while the tab represents a user-owned project-template workflow.

Media

Media groups three surfaces:

  • Image: model and aspect ratio, plus an optional image prompt template.
  • Video: model, aspect ratio, duration, and an optional video prompt template. The hyperframes-html model pins the HyperFrames skill.
  • Audio: speech or sound, model, duration, and an optional voice for speech.

Media skill selection matches either the skill's mode or surface. Design-system selection is hidden because these provider-backed generations use prompt templates rather than the interface token pipeline.

Other

Other creates a free-form project with no required skill id. It retains the general platform and design-system controls and records kind: other.

Design systems are a separate product surface

design-system remains a valid skill mode, but Design System is no longer one of the New Project tabs. Users manage design systems through the dedicated Design System product surface; project creation selects an active system where the workflow supports it. Prototype, Deck, Template, and Other can apply a design system. Live Artifact and Media currently hide that picker in the New Project panel.

Maintenance rules

  • When a creation tab changes, update CreateTab, TAB_LABEL_KEYS, metadata construction, title/auto-name mappings, analytics target mapping, and this document together.
  • When a skill mode changes, update the daemon's SkillMode parser, contract documentation, relevant catalogue entries, and UI filters together.
  • Do not describe bundled rendering templates as functional skills. They live under design-templates/ and are listed through /api/design-templates; functional capabilities live under skills/ and are listed through /api/skills.
  • Keep user-facing capabilities reachable through both the web UI and od CLI, following the repository-wide dual-track rule in the root AGENTS.md.

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