What /design actually is
Claude Code can now publish a design. Not describe one, not paste a wall of CSS, but publish a canvas of editable artboards for your UI and print you the link to it.
You run it inside the repo you are already working in. You give it a brief in plain language. Claude drafts the options as artboards, lays them out on one pan and zoom canvas, publishes it, and prints the URL in the terminal. You open it, pick the one you want, adjust it, and tell Claude to implement that one.
- It is a RESEARCH PREVIEW, not a finished feature
- It needs Claude Code v2.1.233 or later
- It is on Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise, and not on the free plan
- It runs in the CLI and in Claude Code Desktop, and it is built on artifacts
That version and plan line is the part every post about this leaves out, and it is the reason most people who try the command get told it does not exist.
The shape of a session
- Open Claude Code in the project you want the design for. The repo matters, because everything in the second half of this guide depends on Claude being able to read it.
- Run /design with a brief. Describe the thing, not the styling. "A settings page for the billing section" beats "a modern minimal settings page with a purple gradient", because the second one is you doing the design badly.
- Ask for options. Claude will produce genuinely different directions rather than one page in three colourways, which is the whole reason to look at a canvas instead of a screenshot.
- Open the printed link. The artboards are laid out side by side on one canvas you can pan and zoom.
- Pick one, adjust it on the canvas, and tell Claude in the terminal which option to implement.
The canvas is where you decide. The terminal is where it gets built. Do not try to do either job in the other place
What you can actually change on the canvas
This is worth being precise about, because "just drag it around until it looks right" oversells it and then people are disappointed by something that is genuinely useful.
- Click to select any element on an artboard
- Adjust it in a properties panel
- Edit text inline, in place
- Undo and redo
- Save, which publishes a new version for everyone who has the link
That is enough to fix a layout, correct a label, move a block and settle a decision. It is not a full design tool, and it is not trying to be. The moment you want a real change you go back to the terminal and ask for it, which is the right place for it to happen.
Where saving is not enabled for an account, the canvas is still a view and export preview, so you can take a PNG or a PDF out of it.
Free, for your email
Get the full setup steps + the copy-paste setup prompt
The rest of this guide (4 more sections) opens right here. The setup prompt, one paste into Claude that sets it all up, comes by email only. Use your real address.
Unlocks: The second command, and it is the one that matters · What a design system project actually holds · The order to run them in · The honest limits
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