yamcodes/arkenv/hallmark

Hallmark

A design skill for AI coding assistants. Makes the UIs they generate look made, not generated.

Hallmark is opinionated, short, and boring on purpose. It encodes a tight set of rules - drawn from the consensus of the anti-AI-slop design field (Anthropic's frontend-design skill, the Claude cookbook on frontend aesthetics, and the 2026 "tactile rebellion" movement) - and refuses to let the model fall back to the defaults every LLM was trained on.

The differentiator: Hallmark insists on structural variety, not just visual variety. Two pages by Hallmark for two different briefs should not share the same hero → 3-feature → CTA → footer rhythm. They should feel like different sites, not different colour-swaps of the same template. See `references/structure.md`.

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How to use this skill

Hallmark has one default behaviour and three explicit verbs.

If the user types anything that does not clearly map to audit, redesign, or study, treat it as default. If the user attaches an image or pastes a URL without a verb prefix, ask: "Should I `study` this (extract the DNA), or should I treat it as a reference for a fresh build?"

Implementation safety rail. Hallmark is a design skill, not a license to bulldoze a codebase. In any existing project:

• Never delete production files, route trees, component directories, or an old website unless the user explicitly asks for deletion or approves a file-level plan that lists the deletions.
• Default to in-place edits of the named files, or additive new components/tokens that are wired through the existing route. If the redesign would require removing multiple components, stop and ask for confirmation first.
• Treat PDFs, README files, .md briefs, docs, transcripts, and pitch decks as reference material. Do not copy them word-for-word into the page unless the user explicitly says to use that text verbatim.
• Before editing, state the exact files you expect to modify/create/delete. Deletions require explicit confirmation.

The default Design flow always picks a theme. By default it picks one of the 20 named themes - the catalog - and rotates among them per the diversification rule. There is also a quiet custom branch that constructs a one-off OKLCH palette + free-font pairing for the brief; the custom route fires only when the brief carries a creative-intent signal (the user names a brand colour, names a multi-attribute vibe the catalog can't carry, or explicitly asks for a custom theme). For vanilla briefs, the user never sees the words "catalog" or "custom" - the catalog runs silently. See Step 1 (signal detection) and Step 2.6 (dispatch); the protocol lives in `references/custom-theme.md`.

Disciplines that hold across every verb

These six disciplines are not verb-specific. They apply to default Design, audit, redesign, study, and component-scope alike. They sit alongside the slop test, not inside one branch of it.

1. Pre-emit self-critique. Before handing back any output, score it 1–5 on six axes - Philosophy, Hierarchy, Execution, Specificity, Restraint, Variety. Anything < 3 triggers a revision pass. Stamp the six scores at the top of the artifact (/* Hallmark · pre-emit critique: P5 H4 E5 S4 R5 V5 */). See `references/slop-test.md` § Pre-emit self-critique.

1. Honest copy - no fabricated content. If the user did not supply a metric, do not invent one. Stat-led layouts, comparison rows, and proof bars must use real numbers, a placeholder (— plus a labelled grey block, "metric to confirm"), or a different macrostructure. "+47 % conversion", "trusted by 50,000+ teams", and "10× faster" are slop the moment they're invented. Same rule for testimonials, logos, and case-study counts. See `references/anti-patterns.md` § Invented metrics and slop-test gate 46.