Design system repo

Spine's design-system template compiles the contract your downstream apps depend on: token schema, primitive set, theme surfaces, a11y defaults, Storybook expectations. Each rule carries a source pointer back to your tokens or brief so agents can't drift.

Who this template is for

Design system teams at agencies or in-house. Platform engineers owning the primitives everyone else builds on. Anyone who has watched a button component fork four times in one quarter.

Get started

$ npm install -g project-spine@next
$ spine init --template design-system
$ spine compile --brief ./brief.md --repo . --template design-system
✓ wrote spine.json
✓ wrote AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md, copilot-instructions.md
✓ wrote scaffold-plan, qa-guardrails, sprint-1-backlog

What spine compile emits

• Token schema — colors, spacing, radius, motion, typography
• Primitive contract — Button, Input, Field, Select, Dialog, Toast, Tooltip
• Layout primitives — Stack, Inline, Grid, Box with the spacing scale
• Theme surfaces — light / dark / high-contrast via tokens
• Icon set rules — tree-shakeable, accessible by default

Good fit if

• Teams maintaining tokens across multiple product apps
• Rebrands where the token graph needs to stay honest
• Agencies handing a design system off to a client team

Pairs well with

• saas-marketingLaunch a conversion-focused marketing site your agents actually understand.
• app-dashboardRole-aware dashboard context, compiled. No more reinventing the auth shell.
• docs-portalTechnical docs your agents can read, update, and keep honest.