Taste Skill Framework

Open-source anti-slop framework for AI agents. Source: github.com/Leonxlnx/taste-skill + tasteskill.dev (Leon Brown / Leonxlnx). Provides the 13 taste-* skills installed at ~/.cursor/skills/taste-* and the project-level .cursor/rules/taste-enforcement.mdc rule used in Sigil, Reticle, and Dedalus.

Why It Exists

LLMs default to the statistical center of their training data. Without hard constraints, every AI-generated frontend collapses into the same look: Inter font, centered hero, blue gradient, three equal cards, blur blobs. The taste-skill framework is a shared rule library that makes generic output structurally impossible - variance dials force asymmetry, banned patterns block cliches, required UI states catch missing loading/empty/error coverage. Source: https://github.com/Leonxlnx/taste-skill; https://www.tasteskill.dev/

The framework is shared across Anthropic Claude, GPT/Codex, Cursor, and Google Stitch via skill files plus project rules. Same constraints, same vocabulary, same anti-pattern list.

Components

Image Generation Route

The May 2026 bookmark points at skills/imagegen-frontend-web/SKILL.md: use the taste framework before code by generating one image/reference per website section, then implementing against the visual direction. The durable pattern is reference board first, UI code second for high-taste web work. This belongs in the taste-motion/design capsule, not as a generic image tool, because the skill's value is the design constraint system around the images. Source: X/@LexnLin, 2026-05-02; Source: Leonxlnx/taste-skill, 2026-06-30

The reviewed video artifact shows the rule in practice: one "Forma" site concept rendered as multiple horizontal section references - hero, system/section cards, testimonial proof, and closing CTA - instead of one tall stitched mockup. That makes the design reviewable and codeable section by section, which is the exact opposite of asking a model to hallucinate a finished webpage from a single mood image. Source: X/@LexnLin, 2026-05-02; Source: local video contact sheet, reviewed 2026-07-02

Current source snapshot as of 2026-07-02: Leonxlnx/taste-skill has no release tags; default-branch HEAD 06d6028b5c623016c59ce8536f578e5a1127b499, MIT license, 54,624 GitHub stars, and 3,752 forks. Brin returned caution for both the skill and repo routes (score 59/61, confidence medium), so treat upstream changes as source snapshots and re-run Security and Review Skills before copying new skill bodies into the active runtime. Source: GitHub API + Brin, 2026-07-02

Brand Kit Route

The DrapzDZN Radiant artifact is a useful taste-brandkit benchmark because it shows a full identity board rather than a lone logo: symbol and wordmark, spacing grid, primary logo, Host Grotesk typography, brand colors, logo usage, poster/social applications, and a coherent dark luminous wave motif with peach accent applications. The review standard for AI-generated identity work is therefore system completeness: capture logo geometry, type, palette, usage, and applications before treating a brand direction as reusable. Source: X/@DrapzDZN, 2026-03-14; Source: local image artifact, reviewed 2026-07-02

The Second Eight Radial artifact extends that benchmark for technical/health AI identity. The local board combines logo construction, biological/scientific textures, data coordinates, typography specimens, UI shells, workflow cards, color chips, and product copy around "orchestration" for health and life sciences. The reusable taste-brandkit rule: a technical brand kit should prove semantics through system diagrams, UI fragments, and domain-specific texture, not just an abstract mark. Source: X/@secondeight_, 2026-04-09; Source: local image artifact, reviewed 2026-07-03

The jamescoder12 Gemini prompt thread is useful as a prompt checklist, not as proof that logo designers are obsolete. Its seven-step sequence covers brand foundation, logo concepts, color psychology, typography, visual direction, voice/messaging, and a complete brand bible. The reusable rule for taste-brandkit: ask for the brand system in layers, then judge the output against real guideline references such as Public Brand Guideline References. A single pretty logo concept is not enough to promote a brand direction. Source: X/@jamescoder12 thread, 2026-03-12

Personal Aesthetic Skill Route

The @fleeting_land demo is a candidate pattern for personal design-aesthetic skills. The reviewed video shows a Claude skill producing a browsable design-system mirror: named aesthetic modes such as warm editorial and dark precision, principle pages like "Quiet Motion", a motion/gallery surface, and an image-led "Aesthetic Mirror." The durable rule is that a taste skill should emit reviewable artifacts and named modes, not a vague "make it my style" prompt. Keep this as a reference pattern until there is source, an install route, or repeated evidence that Kevin should encode a personal aesthetic skill beyond the existing taste-* stack. Source: X/@fleeting_land and local video review, 2026-07-03

The 13 Skills

For routing logic and workflow combinations, see Frontend and Design Skills.

Install

The 13 skills live in the wiki repo at skills/personal/<name>/SKILL.md so they're committed and reproducible. npm run bootstrap symlinks ~/.cursor/skills to skills/personal.

cd ~/Documents/GitHub/kevin-wiki
npm run bootstrap

Direct from upstream (if not using the wiki mirror):

git clone https://github.com/Leonxlnx/taste-skill ~/Downloads/taste-skill
cp -r ~/Downloads/taste-skill/skills/taste-* skills/personal/
cp -r ~/Downloads/taste-skill/skills/frontend-design-taste skills/personal/

For per-project enforcement, drop .cursor/rules/taste-enforcement.mdc into the repo root and set alwaysApply: true in the rule frontmatter.

See skills/README.md in the wiki repo for the skill taxonomy conventions.

Project Rule (Sigil / Reticle / Dedalus)

The .cursor/rules/taste-enforcement.mdc file installed in Sigil UI, Reticle Design System, and Dedalus enforces these constraints automatically on every agent message - no skill invocation needed:

• All 519 Sigil tokens consumed via var(--s-*) only (Sigil-specific overlay)
• Variance dial defaults pinned per project (Sigil: 8/6/4 marketing, 6/5/5 product)
• Banned-pattern list applied to every code block before output
• Required UI states checklist applied to interactive components

When the rule fires, it cross-references Taste Enforcement - Anti-Slop Frontend Rules (the design page with the full reference) and the project-specific design system rule (sigil-design-system.mdc, reticle-design-system.mdc).

Quality Gate

Before installing or updating any taste-* skill, run the Security and Review Skills checks:

1. Brin score: curl https://api.brin.sh/repo/Leonxlnx/taste-skill - current verdict is caution, so do not import fresh upstream bodies without a manual audit.
2. Skill auditor: 6-step vetting (typosquat, permissions, dependencies, prompt injection, network, content)
3. Reputation: github.com/Leonxlnx/taste-skill - Awwwards-cited, mirrored on tasteskill.dev

The framework is content-only (no executable code, no MCP tools, no network calls), so the supply-chain risk is low - the audit focuses on prompt-injection patterns inside the SKILL.md files.

When To Extend

Add a new taste-<archetype> skill when:

• A visual style repeats across 3+ projects and the existing 4 archetypes (soft / minimalist / brutalist / GPT) don't capture it
• A workflow pattern (e.g. image-first, audit-and-fix, brand-kit) needs its own modifier skill
• A new agent surface (e.g. Anthropic skills, Codex skills, OpenCode skills) needs the framework ported

Use Browser Testing Skills to scaffold, mirror upstream to Leonxlnx/taste-skill via PR, and register in Frontend and Design Skills.

Related Tools and References

• Skills.sh - Agent Skills Registry - agent skill registry where taste-skill is published
• Design Engineering Resources - broader design-engineering tool index (Rauno, Emil Kowalski, Josh Puckett)
• Frontend and Design Skills - Kevin's adaptation with vocabulary bottleneck + archetype map
• Taste Enforcement - Anti-Slop Frontend Rules - design-page reference for the full anti-slop ruleset
• Frontend and Design Skills - routing layer for which skill fires when
• Frontend and Design Skills - Anthropics' distinctive-frontend skill (complementary, not redundant)
• Frontend and Design Skills - broader 2024-2026 design trend reference
• github.com/Leonxlnx/taste-skill - upstream source
• tasteskill.dev - published documentation site

Where Kevin Uses It

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Timeline

• 2026-07-03 | Added Second Eight's Radial health-AI brand identity board as taste-brandkit evidence for technical/domain-specific identity: logo geometry, scientific textures, data coordinates, typography, UI shells, workflow cards, and product copy need to work as one system. Source: X/@secondeight_, 2026-04-09; Source: local image artifact, 2026-07-03
• 2026-07-03 | Added the jamescoder12 Gemini prompt thread as taste-brandkit prompt-structure evidence: strategy foundation, logo concepts, color, type, visual direction, voice, and brand-bible output. Kept it as a checklist for layered identity exploration, not an anti-designer thesis. Source: X/@jamescoder12, 2026-03-12
• 2026-07-03 | Added @fleeting_land's personal design-aesthetic Claude skill demo as a reference-only route: taste skills should output named modes and reviewable system pages, not only style prompts. No active skill was added because there is no public source or install route. Source: X/@fleeting_land, 2026-05-12
• 2026-07-02 | Added DrapzDZN's Radiant brand board as taste-brandkit evidence: logo mark, spacing, typography, color, usage, and application mocks. Kept it as brand-kit workflow evidence, not a new tool or proof that designers are obsolete. Source: X/@DrapzDZN, 2026-03-14; Source: local image artifact, 2026-07-02
• 2026-07-02 | Deep-reviewed X bookmark 2050697067882746209; repaired the local thumbnail, sampled the video contact sheet, resolved the self-thread to imagegen-frontend-web/SKILL.md, refreshed GitHub reputation to 54,624 stars / 3,752 forks, and recorded Brin caution for the upstream repo/skill. Source: X/@LexnLin, 2026-05-02; GitHub API and Brin, 2026-07-02
• 2026-06-30 | Deep-reviewed the imagegen-frontend-web bookmark. Promoted the durable workflow: taste-constrained visual references before UI code for high-stakes frontend pages. Updated upstream reputation/status: MIT, no tags, HEAD 06d6028b5c623016c59ce8536f578e5a1127b499, ~53.8K stars. Source: X/@LexnLin, 2026-05-02; Source: GitHub, 2026-06-30
• 2026-06-17 | Added inline provenance and timeline for the framework page; kept this as the canonical tool-level overview rather than duplicating individual taste skill docs. Source: https://github.com/Leonxlnx/taste-skill; skills/personal/taste-*
• 2026-05-04 | Created page for the upstream taste-skill framework and Kevin's local installation pattern. Source: https://github.com/Leonxlnx/taste-skill; https://www.tasteskill.dev/