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Notes to help you understand, explore, and build with Open Design — across product, guides, use cases, and community.

An editorial plate with black crystal fragments arranged around a red circle Guides

The open-source alternative to Claude Design

Claude Design is good. It's also closed-source, hosted-only, and bundled with a Claude subscription. Here's the honest read on when to pick it — and when the open-source path wins.

May 14, 2026 · 7 min read Read more →
All Product Guides Use cases Community
  1. A black faceted installer box opened with a ready-made engine core rising out of it, accented by a red circle and an olive branch on a warm editorial study plate Product

    Open Design 0.9.0: design for everyone

    Open Design 0.9.0 is the install-and-create release. No API-key scavenger hunt, no three-CLI setup — open the app, sign in once, pick a model, and start building. Plus a bigger agent bench, a real plugin library, and easier installs on Windows and Linux.

    June 2, 2026 6 min read Read →
  2. Black faceted picture-frame and vector-pen solids re-measured around a red circle with an olive branch on a warm editorial study plate Guides

    The open-source alternative to Figma

    Figma is excellent and it isn't going anywhere. But the file is proprietary, the seats are a subscription, and the canvas lives in someone else's cloud. Here's the honest read on when Figma is still the answer — and when owning an agent-native, local-first workflow wins.

    May 26, 2026 7 min read Read →
  3. A central black cube engine core ringed by paper-tile plugins, an olive branch, and a bold red circle on a warm editorial study plate Product

    Open Design 0.8.0: everything is a plugin

    Open Design 0.8.0 isn't a release, it's a rebuild. A small plugin engine, a headless-by-default CLI, packaged auto-update on macOS and Windows, and 149 design systems shipped in seven days.

    May 22, 2026 7 min read Read →
  4. An abstract layout map emerging from a hidden canvas on a warm paper study plate Community

    The layout layer the canvas used to hide

    A community reply on the 0.8.0 preview named the real question behind agent-native design: if the canvas stops being the work unit, how do users still understand layout?

    May 18, 2026 5 min read Read →
  5. An abstract workflow of frames, connectors, and a plugin module on a warm paper study plate Use cases

    How to port a Figma workflow into an Open Design plugin

    The 0.8.0-preview thread asks contributors to port old design workflows one plugin at a time. Here is the concrete path for a Figma export, token sync, or brand kit.

    May 18, 2026 6 min read Read →
  6. A geometric study plate with a red circle, branch, sphere, and black cube Guides

    BYOK reality check: 5 things that break in Open Design today

    We promised BYOK as first-class. Five open bug threads from this week — Gemini, DeepSeek, OpenCode, Windows — show where the seams are still rough, and what to use until each fix lands.

    May 14, 2026 7 min read Read →
  7. An open notebook with a brass compass and leaf over a red circle study plate Guides

    31 skills, 72 systems: how the Open Design library works

    A walk through the four primitives that make Open Design composable: skills, systems, adapters, and the daemon. With concrete examples of how a Markdown file becomes a pixel-perfect deliverable.

    May 13, 2026 6 min read Read →
  8. An abstract paper plate with a red circle, dotted fields, arcs, and leaves Guides

    BYOK design workflow: run Claude, Codex, or Qwen on your own key

    Most AI design tools quietly add a margin to every token you spend. Open Design takes the opposite stance — bring your own model key, pay the provider directly, and keep full control of where inference runs. Here's how the BYOK layer actually works.

    May 13, 2026 6 min read Read →
  9. An abstract paper plate with layered circles, arcs, and botanical details Product

    Why we built Open Design as a skill layer, not a product

    Most AI design tools try to replace the agent already on your laptop. Open Design takes the opposite bet: ship a thin layer of skills, systems, and adapters that turn any coding agent into a design engine — without locking you into a new app.

    May 13, 2026 5 min read Read →