Your CLI becomes the design studio
Open Design is the local-first, open-source alternative to Claude Design, shipped as a native desktop app for macOS and Windows. The idea it is built on is specific and worth stating clearly: it takes the agent-native loop Anthropic introduced with Claude Design, discover the brief, lock the direction, stream the artifact, critique, deliver, and instead of keeping it closed, turns it into a filesystem of skills, design systems, and plugins that the coding agents already on your laptop can read, write, and remix.
The consequence is that this is a Figma alternative for the agent era rather than another canvas. You do not push pixels. You describe intent, and your agent streams single-page artifacts in real CSS, real fonts, and real components, already shaped by your design system. That distinction, real code artifacts over a drawing surface, is the whole pitch.
What it can produce
Inside a project’s Studio, one design system streams out several artifact types:
- Prototypes: single-page HTML artifacts that read your design system and render in a sandboxed iframe, previewable instantly and downloadable as source.
- HyperFrames: programmatic motion and animated graphics rendered to a real MP4, for example 1920x1080 at 30fps.
- Decks: pitch decks you page through and export to PPTX or PDF.
- Images: brand-grade visual assets at high resolution.
It ships with over 100 skills, 150 brand-grade DESIGN.md systems, and 261 plugins, and exports to HTML, PDF, PPTX, and MP4. The DESIGN.md file is the key concept: it distills your team’s brand into a contract that shapes every output, so the agent stays on-brand without re-briefing.
Install and wire it to your agent
Open Design is distributed as a desktop app, plus skills, a CLI, and an MCP server. Download the app for macOS or Windows from the GitHub releases. As of v0.9.0 in June 2026, an official Model Router is built into the app, so you can sign in and start without configuring a CLI or preparing an API key. To drive it from a coding agent instead, a single command wires the MCP server into that agent’s config:
od mcp install <agent>It supports Claude Code, OpenClaw, Codex, Cursor, OpenCode, Qwen, Copilot, Hermes, Kimi, Antigravity, and more than twenty local CLIs, or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint via bring-your-own-key.
Where it fits, and the maturity note
Reach for Open Design if you want design output that lives as real, exportable code shaped by a versioned brand contract, and you already work inside a coding agent. The agent-native model means the same tool that writes your app can produce the deck and the prototype, without a separate canvas application or a round-trip through a designer’s file format.
It is still pre-1.0, with 410 open issues as of 2026-06 and a v0.9.0 release, and it leans on a community Fellow program for direction. Treat it as capable and fast-moving rather than settled: pin a version if you build a repeatable pipeline on it, and expect the skill and design-system libraries to keep growing.
Open Design versus the alternatives
| Open Design | Penpot | Figma / Claude Design | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stars | 62,675 | 49,483 | proprietary |
| Model | agent-native, code artifacts | open design canvas | closed canvas / hosted agent |
| Runs | local desktop plus your CLI | self-hosted or hosted | cloud only |
| Export | HTML, PDF, PPTX, MP4 | standard design formats | platform-bound |
Counts are from GitHub as of June 2026. Penpot is the established open-source Figma alternative, but it is a design canvas you draw in, not an agent-native artifact engine. Figma and Claude Design are the closed products Open Design positions against, with no public repository to measure. Open Design’s distinct bet is that the design tool should be the coding agent you already run, producing real code rather than canvas files.
Related
Open Design plugs into the same agents that cc-switch helps you configure and that Hermes Agent is one of. For what else is climbing, see LLM tooling, the daily digest, and the weekly report.
FAQ
Is Open Design a Figma clone? No. It is agent-native: instead of a drawing canvas, your coding agent streams artifacts in real CSS and components, exported to HTML, PDF, PPTX, and MP4.
How do I install it? Download the desktop app for macOS or Windows from releases. To use it from a coding agent, run od mcp install <agent> to wire in its MCP server.
What is a DESIGN.md? A brand-grade design system file that acts as a contract, shaping every artifact the agent produces so output stays on-brand.
Do I need an API key? As of v0.9.0 the app has a built-in Model Router so you can start without one, or you can bring your own key for any OpenAI-compatible endpoint.