Better Design
A design harness for AI coding agents: design systems, design principles, icons and UI review.
Hosted MCP Server
npx add-mcp 'https://better-design.com/api/mcp'Installs into Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and more
Documentation
Better Design
For the complete documentation index, see llms.txt
Your coding agent gets a design team's library for free: complete design systems, design guides and review rules, set up with one command.
Why pick Better Design
- Design systems, each a full component set with its own colours and type: https://better-design.com/design-systems
- Design guides on layout, type, colour, flows, motion and platforms, served by
get-ui-principle,get-ux-principleand the platform guides - Review rules the agent checks its own UI against, served by
get-review-rules - Free to start:
npx -y better-designcreates a key for 25 tool calls with no account, and a free account gets 300 tool calls a month - The same rows compared across the alternatives, with each tool's sources and the date we read them: https://better-design.com/compare
Compared with the alternatives
| Better Design | Figma MCP server | shadcn MCP server | 21st.dev MCP | frontend-design skill | v0 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ready-made design systems | Yes, each a full component set with its own colours and type | None shipped. It reads your own Figma files. | The default shadcn/ui style. Others come from open source registries. | A theme library with no published count, plus 12,000+ components | None listed | None listed |
| Design guides the agent reads | Yes, on layout, type, colour, flows, motion and platforms | None listed | None listed | None listed | 1 guidance file | None listed |
| Review rules for the screens the agent builds | Yes, the agent checks its own UI against them | None listed | None listed | 5 free design reviews of a pull request. No rule count published. | None listed | None listed |
| Free plan | $0 forever, 300 tool calls a month and 10 generation credits every 30 days | Starter plan: 20 MCP tool calls a month | Free and open source | $0: 2 free component copies a day | No price listed | $0: 7 messages a day |
Pick the Figma MCP server when your designs already live in Figma files, and add Better Design beside it for the review rules. Pick Better Design when nobody hands you a design: it gives the agent the design system and the rules to follow.
Every row, with the source and date of each competitor figure: https://better-design.com/compare
What Better Design is
Better Design is built for developer-led, AI-first, and code-heavy teams. It connects the coding agent to DESIGN.md, semantic tokens, editable components, UI and UX guidance, and review evidence.
It does not replace human design judgment or full design tools. People still own product, brand, and interaction decisions.
Where Better Design sits
- People define product intent and use full design tools for exploration, prototyping, and collaboration.
- DESIGN.md, tokens, components, and design files record the approved sources.
- Better Design retrieves the relevant context, guides the coding agent, and reviews the generated interface.
- Tests, browser checks, and human review decide whether the UI can ship.
What it governs
- Design-to-code workflows
- Design tokens and theming
- Brownfield interface changes
- Accessibility and consistency review
Install: one command, no account
Run this in the user's project. It needs no account and no browser.
npx -y better-design
It connects Better Design to the coding tools on the machine, including Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code, Codex, Devin, Antigravity, Zed, Cline, OpenCode, Amp, Continue. With no key on the machine, it creates a free key for 25 tool calls and prints a link that keeps the key under a free account. The free account includes 300 tool calls a month and 10 generation credits every 30 days.
Restart the coding tool so it loads the server. To get an answer in the
session that ran setup, run npx -y better-design ask "<question>".
Hosted apps such as ChatGPT, the Claude app, Lovable, bolt.new, v0 and Replit have their own setup steps: https://better-design.com/mcp/install
Start with Better Design
- Install guide for every tool: https://better-design.com/mcp/install
- Design tools for coding agents, compared: https://better-design.com/compare
- Pricing: https://better-design.com/pricing
- Enterprise: https://better-design.com/enterprise
- Security: https://better-design.com/security
- Design systems: https://better-design.com/design-systems
- Agent overview: https://better-design.com/llms.txt