Export DESIGN.MD from shadcn UI builder for tooling interoperability

[el-frontend]

It would be highly beneficial to allow exporting a DESIGN.MD file directly from https://ui.shadcn.com/create.

This file could provide structured design context (components, tokens, layout decisions, etc.) that external tools—such as Stitch and other AI-driven or automation tools—can consume to better understand and operate on the generated UI.

Why this matters

• Enables better interoperability with third-party tools
• Provides a standardized way to describe design decisions
• Improves automation and AI-assisted workflows
• Reduces the need for reverse engineering UI structure

Proposal

Add an option in the UI builder to export a DESIGN.MD file containing:

• Component hierarchy
• Design tokens (colors, spacing, typography)
• Layout structure
• Variants and states
• Any relevant metadata for external consumption

Expected impact

This could quickly become a standard for bridging design systems and AI tooling, making shadcn UI even more powerful in modern development workflows.

[demartini]

Well, until there's an official solution, this might be helpful: https://github.com/rohitnirban/shadcn-design-md

[MaxPrehoda]

Another option until there's an official export: if you've already built the app, you can generate a DESIGN.md from the codebase instead of from /create.

I wrote a set of agent skills that does this (I'm the author): https://github.com/MaxPrehoda/motif. It measures the colors, spacing and type your code actually uses, asks you to settle the choices with rendered previews, then writes the Tailwind tokens and a DESIGN.md listing each token, what it's for, and explicit "Never" rules for agents. When components.json exists it keeps shadcn's role names (primary, muted-foreground and so on), so it fits a shadcn project.