v12.0.0 — Design vocabulary overhaul

Major: design vocabulary overhaul. Adopts impeccable's anti-pattern catalog and AI Slop Test, plus taste-skill aesthetic packs, so the crew produces meaningfully better UI by default.

Added

• 10 design references under references/frontend/design/ adapted from impeccable (Apache-2.0):
  • typography.md — modular scales (1.25× min ratio), 4-step font selection heuristic, OpenType, fluid vs fixed type
  • color-and-contrast.md — OKLCH over HSL, tinted neutrals, dark-mode as surface elevation, WCAG ratios
  • spatial-design.md — 4pt scale, gap over margins, auto-fit minmax(280px,1fr) grids, container queries
  • motion-design.md — exponential easing, high-impact moments, reduced-motion mandate
  • interaction-design.md — optimistic UI, focus-visible states, empty states that teach
  • responsive-design.md — mobile-first, container queries, content-driven breakpoints
  • ux-writing.md — verb+object buttons, error formula (what/why/how), translation expansion budgets
  • craft-process.md — structured build order (structure → layout → type → states → motion → responsive)
  • anti-patterns.md — banned fonts (Inter, Roboto, DM Sans, Playfair, …), banned patterns (gradient text, side-stripe borders >1px, glassmorphism, nested cards, gray-on-colored), the AI Slop Test
  • design-context-protocol.md — 3-step protocol for capturing brand voice into .design-context.md
• 4 new steering skills for incremental design improvement:
  • /design-critique — independent UI review scoring 6 axes (typography, color, spacing, motion, interaction, originality) 1–10 against anti-patterns
  • /design-polish — surgical micro-improvements (type scale, spacing rhythm, focus states); never refactors structure
  • /design-distill — strip overdesign; consolidate palette, flatten nested cards, reduce decoration
  • /design-context — interactive Q&A → writes .design-context.md at project root (required before net-new design work)
• 4 new archetypes in references/frontend/design-archetypes.md from taste-skill:
  • Industrial Brutalist, Minimalist (Editorial Utility), Soft (Awwwards-tier), Stitch (Taste Standard)
• Design Quality Gate section in frontend-engineer agent — mandatory consult of anti-patterns.md and AI Slop Test before declaring UI complete

Changed

• /website — design-system step now requires reading typography, color-and-contrast, spatial-design, anti-patterns; AI Slop Test runs before scaffolding
• /website-theme — extended archetype list with the 4 new packs; theme propositions must avoid banned fonts/patterns
• /design-variants — each variant must map to a distinct archetype and pass the anti-patterns check; report labels each variant's archetype
• /react-doctor — added Step 4.5 "Design anti-patterns" scan (gradient text, side-stripe borders, font-mono overuse, hardcoded #000/#fff, gray-on-colored)
• frontend-engineer agent — added design-critique, design-polish, design-distill, design-context to skill list; new Design Quality Gate + Design Context Protocol sections
• references/INDEX.md — new "Design Vocabulary" section indexing all 10 design references
• Skill count: 84 → 88

Migration notes

This release is additive only. No existing skills were removed or renamed. Existing projects continue to work unchanged. To benefit from the new vocabulary on existing sites:

1. Run /design-context to capture brand voice into .design-context.md
2. Run /design-critique to score current UI
3. Run /design-polish (or /design-distill) to apply auto-fixes

The major version bump signals the meaningful quality shift in default UI output, not a breaking API change.

Sources

• impeccable by pbakaus — Apache-2.0
• taste-skill by Leonxlnx — referenced for archetype packs

Earlier versions

See git history (git log --oneline -- packages/crew/) for releases prior to 12.0.0.