About Grist

Why this exists

Howdy! Grist is my side quest in the world of AI. Enjoy the growing collection of prompts, skills, rules and experiments for product design, from figuring out what it can really do.

Each drop comes with a short note on why I use it and a file you can paste straight into Claude, Cursor or a CLAUDE.md. A new one lands every Friday, eight to a season.

Tested means I've used it on real work. Trying means I'm still finding out. The ideas are mine, and Claude helps me format the files. Add .md to any address if you'd rather read plain markdown.

Rarities

Rarity is how deep a drop goes. Higher tiers take more setup and give you more.

  1. CommonOne idea you can use straight away, like a rule or a short prompt.
  2. UncommonNeeds a little setup. A prompt with blanks to fill, or a checklist with steps.
  3. RareGoes deeper. A full review checklist, a longer prompt or a simple skill.
  4. EpicA template you fill in, with a worked example. Usually a spec or a bigger skill.
  5. LegendaryA whole kit to install, with examples and a note on when not to use it.
  6. UltraSeveral skills and a reviewer agent chained into one workflow. It stops for your approval along the way, and comes with a sample run.

Tokens-only Guardrail

RuleTested

tl;dr

A rule that keeps AI tools building UI from your design tokens and nothing else.

Add it to the rules file of any repo with a design system, and the AI builds from your tokens and asks you before it adds a new value.

Why

I want control over the output. I don’t want stray styles flying around the codebase.

So I give it a guardrail, a rule it reads before writing any code. Without one, agents make styles up on the spot or hard-code everything. With it, colours, spacing and sizes all come from the system. When something really does need a custom style, the agent asks me first, and if I agree we add a token.

Rule

Tokens-only Guardrail

One line for a system prompt or CLAUDE.md

When writing UI, use the design system's tokens for every colour, spacing, size, radius, shadow and font. Never write a raw value (hex, px, rem) if a token exists. If no token fits, stop and tell me which value you need instead of inventing one.
tokens-only-guardrail.md

See also

  • Prompt

    Token Description Writer

    Write a one-line description for every token, by the job it does.

    • Tested

  • Checklist

    Design System Audit

    The things a design system hasn't decided yet, written down before anyone builds on it.

    • Tested

  • Spec

    DESIGN.md

    One plain file that explains how your design system works, for people and agents alike.

    • Tested

  • SpecPlugin included

    Design Token Pipeline

    Get Figma variables into code in one direction, through one standard token file.

    • Tested

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