OpenDesign
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What is OpenDesign?
OpenDesign treats an existing coding agent as the engine of a visual workspace. A brief moves through research, visual direction, generation, live preview, critique, and export while reusable skills, templates, plugins, and DESIGN.md systems keep the work connected to the project rather than trapped in a hosted canvas.
OpenDesign is an open-source, local-first design workspace that connects coding agents such as Codex, Claude Code, Cursor, OpenCode, and Gemini CLI to structured creative workflows. It produces runnable prototypes, websites, dashboards, slide decks, images, and video while keeping project files and design systems on the user's machine.
Core capabilities
- Connects 20+ coding-agent runtimes without locking projects to one model provider.
- Creates runnable prototypes, dashboards, slides, images, and video from reusable skills and templates.
- Carries brand rules across outputs through portable DESIGN.md systems.
Design workflows powered by the agents developers already use
OpenDesign connects local coding-agent runtimes to a desktop workspace instead of bundling one proprietary model. Supported agents can research a brief, generate real files, run tools, preview artifacts, and continue revisions inside the same project.
- coding agents
- BYOK
- local-first
- live preview
A portable design system becomes the project contract
Brand choices can be recorded in DESIGN.md systems and combined with reusable skills, templates, and plugins. The rules travel with the files so prototypes, dashboards, presentations, imagery, and motion work can share one visual language.
- DESIGN.md
- design systems
- skills
- plugins
Real files remain under local control
The desktop app and daemon run locally, generated artifacts land in the project directory, and the user chooses the connected agent and provider. Outputs can be delivered as runnable HTML or exported to PDF, PPTX, and MP4.
- local files
- HTML
- PPTX
- MP4
Where it fits
Use cases
- 01
Create an on-brand interactive prototype
Turn a product brief into a working web or application prototype, set a visual direction, preview the result in a sandbox, and iterate with the coding agent already installed on your machine.
- 02
Build and reuse a design system
Capture brand rules in a portable DESIGN.md package, then reuse its typography, palette, spacing, and component guidance across later prototypes and production assets.
- 03
Produce presentation and marketing assets
Generate slide decks, campaign pages, images, and HTML video from the same project context, then export real HTML, PDF, PPTX, or MP4 files for delivery and further editing.