Stop drawing pictures of websites.
Driftless is a direct-to-DOM interface editor for people who are tired of their intent getting diluted between design files, tickets, and implementation guesses.
No fake canvas physics. No mystery export step. No "close enough" translation phase.
https://rawlings.github.io/driftless/
Most design tools are simulations. Driftless is closer to the real thing.
You are not pretending a button exists. You are defining how it lays out, stacks, and styles in the browser model itself.
It is still visual. It is just not disconnected from reality.
- The specificity war gets shorter when the thing you set is the thing that renders.
- Handoff drama drops when design decisions already map to implementation behavior.
- CSS stops feeling like "later" and starts feeling like part of designing.
- "Preview" is not a mode switch. The workspace is the preview.
- DOM-first: you are manipulating nodes, not screenshot layers.
- CSS-native: no proprietary style language hiding behind pretty knobs.
- Real-time fidelity: what you see is what the browser is actually doing.
- Drift-resistant by default: less reinterpretation means fewer surprises.
People who want to design with implementation truth in the loop. People who do not want to ask permission to tweak a hover state. People who like power tools and can live with sharp edges.
Driftless is high-fidelity, low-ceremony, and a little dangerous in the best way.
Build for the browser, in the browser.
Contributions are welcome.
Keep changes focused. Respect architecture and UX guardrails. Update docs when behavior changes.
MIT. See LICENSE.